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V. 


SPEECHES 


OF 


SENATOR RHETT AND SENATOR 


CLEMENS 

*1 


IN CONTROVERSY, 

N S I 

b' ^ . « 

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delivered in the Senate of the United States, on the tilth and i§th of February, 185 ;», 

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I 

SPEECHES 


In Senate, February 27, 1852. 

The Senate proceeded to the consideration of the 
Compromise resolutions submitted by Mr. Foote, 
jf Mississippi. 

Mr. RHETT addressed the Senate as follows: 

Mr. President, I probably owe an apology to 
the Senate—at least I think it due to myself to state, 
that the reason why I have not responded sooner 
to the animadversions of the Senator from Alabama 
[Mr. Clemens] and those (in a milder strain) of 
the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Cass] was, that I 
was not in the city of Washington at the time they 
were uttered in the Senate; nor did I know of the 
personalities which the Senator from Alabama had 
used towards me until just o*n the eve of my de- 

r irture from home to return to Washington. After 
had been here for several days I read them, and 
I have since been watching the current of business 
under the hope that the resolution upon which these 
animadversions were made would come up for con¬ 
sideration, and that I could then address myself 
with propriety to the Senate upon the animadver¬ 
sions of the Senator from Alabama; but after wait¬ 
ing some ten days or a fortnight, I find that I might 
wait much longer in vain; and therefore the only 
course left to me is to throw myself, as I now do, 
to make my response, upon the indulgence of the 
Senate. 

In order that the Senate may appreciate my po¬ 
sition, I will read an extract from the speech deliv¬ 
ered by the Senator from Alabama. I had hoped 
nat when the altercation between the late Senator 
rom Mississippi [Mr. Foote] and myself had 
losed, that it would be an end, so far as I was con- 
erned, of any contention on this floor. I depre- 
ate all such contention from the bottom of my 
.eart. I have been for twenty years in legislative 
todies, and have so demeaned myself, both in my 
ersonal and private intercourse with other gentle- 
len, as well as in my official intercourse in my 
epresentative capacity, as to bring myself in seri¬ 
ns conflict with none. But now, in consequence 
f having announced upon the floor of the Senate 
pinions which Insincerely and conscientiously en¬ 


tertain, in the discharge of my public duty, I find 
myself the subject of vituperation, assault, and cal¬ 
umny. There is but one course left for me—I 
must defend myself and my position. 

The Senator from Alabama, in the speech to 
which I refer, used the following words: 

“The scene we witnessed the other day during 
the delivery by the Senator from South Carolina 
[Mr. Rhett] of his harangue, surprised no one 
here; but it would have been a matter of profound 
astonishment to the country if they could have been 
spectators of what occurred. There were the Sen¬ 
ator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner,] the Sen¬ 
ator from Ohio, [Mr. Chase,] and the Senator from 
New Hampshire, [Mr. Hale,] gathered about him 
in a sort of fraternal ring, while the countenance of 
the Senator from New York [Mr. Seward] was 
radiant with gladness. Thus was exhibited the 
spectacle of an extreme southern Senator denoun¬ 
cing, in no measured terms, the Government of his 
country, and declaring himself a disunionist, on 
account of alleged wrongs heaped upon him, with 
four as rabid abolitionists as this land contains, 
drinking in his words with eager approbation— 
applauding, cheering, and encouraging him. All 
this was nothing new to us, however strange it 
may appear to the plain and honest yeomanry of 
the country. Nor was it, when calmly considered, 
at all unnatural— 

“ ‘A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.’ 

“There is a sympathy in treason as well as in 
knavery; and those who are earnestly striving to 
accomplish the same end need not quarrel about 
the separate means employed.” 

This extract, and others that I shall read to the 
Senate, are taken from the speech printed by the 
Senator himself, and circulated under his frank, I 
presume, to the people of Alabama. Here is a 
charge on myself of knavery and treason. He says, 
there is a sympathy in treason as well as in knav¬ 
ery, and that that sympathy exists between my¬ 
self and those four Senators on this floor. The 
course which I propose to pursue on this occasion 
before the Senate is that which is very common in 





4 


our courts of justice—to discredit the witness. I 
mean to show that the Senator from A Iabama stands 
in no such high moral position as to give any force 
to his arraignment of me or of any other man for 
the want of integrity or fidelity. 

Such are his words, and I will now show the 
character of the witness. The assertion that the 
Senators he has mentioned were around me, “ap¬ 
plauding and cheering” me, is entirely destitute of 
truth. Every Senator on this floorcan testify that 
no such transaction took place in the Senate. Did 
any Senator on this floor—did the Senator from 
Ohio, the Senator from Massachusetts, or the Sen¬ 
ator from New York —applaud or cheer me? Will 
the Senator from Massachusetts rise up and an¬ 
swer before the Senate, whether he applauded or 
cheered me during the time I was speaking? I yield 
him the floor to hear his reply. 

Mr. Sumner. Mr. President, when the Senator 
from South Carolina addressed the Senate on the 
occasion to which he now refers, I occupied the seat 
belonging to me upon this floor. I listened to him 
throughout his remarks with attention. I was in¬ 
terested by the manner and the ability of his re¬ 
marks, but since he now appeals to me, I am con¬ 
strained to add that, as a lover of the Union, I 
heard him not only without approbation, expressed 
or felt, but with entire dissent. 

Mr. Rhett. Will the honorable Senator from 
Ohio state to the Senate whether he applauded or 
cheered me? 

Mr. Chase. It so happens, Mr. President, that 
I occupy in this chamber the seat next but one to 
that of the honorable Senator from South Carolina. 

I did not leave my seat, but paid him the respect of 
attentively listening to the remarks he addressed to 
the Senate. 1 am not aware, sir, that I so far for¬ 
got the decencies proper to this chamber as to ap¬ 
plaud or to give any special sign of disapproval of 
any sentiment which the Senator uttered. I will 
say, however, now that, so far as that Senator ad¬ 
vocates that doctrine of State rights which Jefferson 
and Madison inculcated, I agree with him; but so 
far as he advocates disunion, I dissent from him— 
utterly, always, everywhere. And I will add fur¬ 
ther, sir, that when the Senator from Alabama in¬ 
culcates reverence for the Constitution and attach¬ 
ment for the Union, I agree with him, as I do with 
every man who professes like sentiments; but when 
the Senator from Alabama promulgates the doctrine 
of consolidation, which the patriarchs of the Dem¬ 
ocratic school have always rejected, I dissent from 
him, and repel the doctrine. 

Mr. Rhett. Mr. President, 1 will go no further 
on this point. Every Senator knows what is the 
truth in regard to this matter. There was not one 
single sign of applause or cheering in this body, 
yet the Senator asserts that these four Senators ap¬ 
plauded, cheered, and encouraged me; and he says 
it was no extraordinary thing at all—nothing 
new—that the Senate of the United States, consist¬ 
ing of representatives of the States, grave governors 
and judges of the land, that such men who have 
gone through a probation of public service in all 
the States, when they are here gathered together, 
should applaud and cheer each other on this floor 
in the course of their observations. Such a thing 
has never disgraced the Senate. Therefore I leave 
the Senate to determine, and I leave the country to 
determine, in the very commencement of my re¬ 


ply to that Senator, how far he is fit to stand up 
here and arraign others for a want of integrity, 
truthfulness, or consistency. 

There was not only no foundation, no fact to 
support this charge, but the reason he assigns i 3 
equally without foundation. His reason was, that 
there was a sympathy between these gentlemen 
and myself on the subject of disunion. That is his 
assertion; that is what he has spread abroad and 
sent into Alabama and the southern States. Sir, 
you have heard what these Senators have said. 
The Senator from Alabama himself has heard them 
express on this floor their opinions concerning the 
Union. I myself have heard the Senator from Ohio 
and the Senator from New York, (who, it is said, 
was also one of those who applauded and cheered 
me,) as every other Senator has heard them on this 
floor, speak in the most devoted terms of their ad¬ 
herence and attachment to the Union, and depre¬ 
cate its dissolution as the greatest of calamities; and 
the Senator from Alabama rises up, and not only as¬ 
serts the fact that they applauded and cheered me on 
this floor for declarations cf hostility to the Union, 
but that the reason for their applause and cheers was 
a sympathetic accordance of opinion between us on 
this subject. Sir, the charge of any sympathy be¬ 
tween us on the point of disunion is as baseless as 
the facts by which he attempts to prove it. On the 
contrary, these Senators agree with him in his 
unionism. Their sympathies, if any exist, are with 


him in his new-born zeal for the preservation o 
the Union. They are his allies, not mine; and by his 
course, is helping on the consummation of their poli¬ 
cy. I suppose I might stop here, so far as I am per¬ 
sonally concerned; but the cause of the South re¬ 
quires, I think, that I should go on, and show the in¬ 
consistencies of the Senator from Alabama. I will 
show that he occupied exactly the ground I now 
occupy, and which many I represent support. If 
he has abandoned it v and now takes directly oppo¬ 
site ground, his censure or aspersions can harm no 
one. His credibility as a witness, his authority 
for evil, can affect neither me nor any other man 
on or off of this floor. I propose to show what 
kind of a man he is from his own speeches and his 
own acts. 

There i3 a practice of the English bar which I 
have seen used in our own courts with very good 
effect. Before the proofs are brought forward, it 
is usual for the lawyer to state what he intends to 
prove, in order that the minds of the court and ju¬ 
ry may be brought to those important points which 
he deems material to the issue. Now I will state 
to the Senate what I propose to prove by the words 
of the Senator from Alabama. 1 do not mean to 
arraign him; he shall arraign himself; I do not 
mean to convict him; he shall convict himself; 
and whatever evil consequences occur to him in 
the estimation of others, it shall be the work ol 
of his own hands. If he shall commit political ol 
moral suicide, his own hand shall do the deed. 

The Senator from Alabama, during the last Con 
gress, delivered various speeches on the subject o 
southern slavery: 

1. On his resolution of the 27th of Decembei 
calling for information as to California, he take 
the position that for Congress to admit Californi 
as a State, with the clause in her constitution pro 
hibiting slavery, was the passage by Congress < 
the Wilmot proviso in a different form, and tha 
in doing so, Congress would violate all preceden 


Pi 


toi 






5 


Mr. Clemens. What is the volume from which 
you read? 

Mr. Riiett. It is all taken from the Congres¬ 
sional Globe. I shall read the extracts themselves 
directly. If he will turn to the dates he will find 
them, or I will send him my extracts, as I have 
them all written down. 

2. On the ] Oth of January, in his speech on the 
Vermont resolutions, advocating resistance by the 
South to the admission of California as the first ag¬ 
gression, he contends that we cannot yield one 
inch; shows that this would not only be impolitic, 
bringing desolation and death to the South, but in¬ 
famous; eschews prudence, treats charges of dis¬ 
union with contempt, and finally depicts two class¬ 
es of traitors existing, the abolitionists and the 
submissionists in the South. 

3. On the 11th of February, in his speech on the 
petition presented by Mr. Hale to dissolve the 
Union, lie asserts that between disunion and sub¬ 
mission of the South to the admission of California, 
the South would take the former; and argues that, 
in this event, it will be the North, not the South, 
wdiieh will dissolve the Union by destroying the 
Constitution. 

4. On the 29th of February, in his speech de¬ 
livered on the President’s message transmitting to 
•the Senate the constitution of California, he de¬ 
nounces Mr. Clay’s resolutions; argues at length 
against the constitutionality of admitting California 
into the Union; denounces her admission as the 
consummation of a drama of fraud and trickery; 
contends that the North gets every thing by Mr. 
Clay’s proposed Compromise, and the South loses 
all; prefers the Wilmot proviso direct; denounces 
all compromises upon the subject; and replies to 
the pictures of war and blood drawn by Messrs. 
Clay and Cass, denying that they have any foun¬ 
dation in the probable course of things; but if re¬ 
alized, the South is not responsible, and should not 
yield on that account; distinctly indicates disunion 
as “the sharp and severe remedy;” descants on 
Washington’s Farewell Address, and contends that 
he would, if alive, sanction his course, and go with 
the South in resistance. 

5. On the 8th of May he attacks the report of the 
Committee of Thirteen, and assails Mr. Mangum; 
contends that there is no room for liberality in the 
construction of the Constitution, and that it cannot 
be compromised away. 

7. On the 16th of May he arraigns Mr. Foote 
for inconsistency in supporting the report of the 
Committee of Thirteen, which he said was only 
an imbodiment of Mr. Clay’s resolutions; denoun¬ 
ces the Compromise as “a shameless surrender;” 
descants upon the “outrage” of the dismember¬ 
ment of Texas; and treats with disrespect and 
contempt the counsel that we should take the Com¬ 
promise as “the best we could get.” 

8. On the 21st of May he replies to Mr. Foote’s 
charge of being in association with abolitionists, 
and shows that their opposition to the bill is for 
contrary reasons. 

9. On the 13th of August he protests against the 
passage of the bill admitting California; repeats his 
position as being against the constitutionality of 
the bill; declares that the States are sovereign; ad¬ 
vocates secession, and declares his allegiance to 
Alabama, intimating that those who support the 
bill are traitors to the South, and would sell their 
souls to Satan, and. betray the Saviour himself, if 


he were to come again on earth, for half the money 
which Judas obtained. \- 

Such were the positions taken by Mr. Jerry 
Clemens, a Senator from Alabama, in the Senate 
of the United States, in the year of our Lord 1850. 
But in the year 1851, in the month of December, 
Mr. Jerry Clemens, according to the speech he 
lately delivered, is an entirely different man, and 
exhibits an entirely new character. In the former 
year he is a State rights resistance man, in the lat¬ 
ter he is a consolidation submissionist; in the for¬ 
mer year he denounces the Compromise as uncon¬ 
stitutional and unendurable by the South—in the 
latter, he defends it as constitutional and the source 
of great blessings to the country; in the former 
he denounced the submissionist to the Compromise 
as a traitor—in the latter, he becomes one himself, 
and denounces the resistance men as traitors; in the 
former year, he descants on a dissolution of the 
Union as the “ sharp and severe remedy ”—in the 
latter, he praises the Union, just as Mr. Cass and 
Mr. Clay had done before him; in the former year, 
he treated with just scorn and contempt the pictures 
of blood and wo which were then portrayed as the 
consequence of the disunion policy—in the next 
year, he becomes a picture-maker in the same line 
himself; in the former year, he declares the States 
sovereign—in the latter, that they are not sovereign; 
in the former year he declares that his allegiance is 
due to Alabama—in the latter, that no allegiance 
of his is due to her, for she cannot punish treason; 
in the former year, he supports secession—in the 
latter he denounces it; and crowns the whole by 
the assertion that Jefferson, the Virginia report and 
resolutions in 1798 and 1799, with Calhoun and 
McDuffie also, all denied the right of secession. 

Now, the Senate is in possession of wffiat I pro¬ 
posed to prove. This is but a synopsis of the po¬ 
sitions of the Senator from Alabama, and a very 
imperfect synopsis. If the Senate will attend to 
the language I shall read, used by the Senator from 
Alabama, I think they will find, in the sequel, that 
I have not only not overstated them, but that I 
have not stated his inconsistency in the full force 
which his own words would pourtray. And if I 
make all this to appear, as I think I shall, will he 
not prove to be a very proper specimen of morality 
and honor, standing up in the Senate of the United 
States to arraign the conduct or principles of other 
Senators ? 

Now, Mr. President, for the extracts to which 
I have alluded. On the 20th of December—(you 
see, sir, he began very early. He could not wait 
till other Senators began. He began himself— 
foremost in his zeal for the interests and honor of 
the South)—on the 20th of December, before Mr. 
Clay offered his resolutions, he came out in the 
Senate and offered a series of resolutions calling 
upon the President for information upon the fol¬ 
lowing subjects : First, whether he had appointed 
a civil and military governor for California since 
March last; second, whether any agent had been 
sent out to California to assist in the formation of 
a State government; third, how the persons calling 
themselves delegates to the convention were elect¬ 
ed, who fixed the qualifications of voters, and what 
those qualifications were; fourth, whether any 
census of the inhabitants of California had been 
taken, and by what law; and fifth, the instructions 
which were given by the government to the civil 
and military governor. On the 7th of January, 






6 


these resolutions came up for consideration in the 
Senate, and the Senator, in his remarks supporting 
their passage, said : 

“ My attention was called to the subject by the 
Governor of the State of Alabama. The people 
of that State believed that a fraud had been prac¬ 
tised, and they called for information. What a 
farce it is to say you oppose, and still do the same 
things which the Wilmot proviso proposes to ac¬ 
complish. Are we to be treated like sick chil¬ 
dren, who are induced to take the medicine offered 
them by giving the pill a coat of sugar,” &c. 

See, sir, what a beautifully fine figure he uses 
for putting the Wilmot proviso upon the South by 
the admission of California with her constitution 
prohibiting slavery, instead of passing it directly in 
a territorial bill: 

“ You will not pass the Wilmot proviso, but you 
come here and pass the same principle which that 
proviso involves; and in doing so you violate all 
precedent since the establishment of the Govern¬ 
ment. And why will you do it? Will a single 
Senator get up and say, that he would vote for the 
admission of that State, were it not for the exist¬ 
ence of slavery in the country? Is there one here 
who would be so reckless as to vote for the admis¬ 
sion of California, were it not for the slavery ques¬ 
tion ? I say it is a matter which we ouglft to know 
all about, and I intend to know all about it.” 

Sir, that is pretty strong language—language 
which I heartily approve. Not being then in pub¬ 
lic life, and a mere spectator afar off, I was looking 
to the Senator from Alabama as one of our most 
brilliant leaders. To the great men of the South, 
especially to her Senators, the people of the South 
turned with intense anxiety to point the way to 
redemption, to honor, and to peace, and to him 
among the number. 

Now, sir, on the 10th of January the Vermont 
resolutions came up. These resolutions covered 
the whole ground of the question of slavery, de¬ 
nouncing it in all parts of the country; and on these 
resolutions the Senator from Alabama early got the 
floor, and here is what he says: 

“ I wish to show my constituents that the decla¬ 
ration so often and so earnestly made, that the 
North does not intend to interfere with slavery 
where it exists, is entirely false, and intended only 
to deceive. The game has been played with some 
success heretofore, and I should consider myself 
very culpable if I did not now expose it. * * 

“The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Chase] says that 
he is not to be deterred by menaces of disunion 
from pursuing the course he has marked out for 
himself. I have no wish to deter him. I want 
him and other northern men to come up boldly, 
and do what they tell us their constituents have 
demanded. * * * * * ' 

“The South, Mr. President, disclaims the lan¬ 
guage of menace, but it is nevertheless due to all 
parties that her deliberate purposes should be known. 
We do not intend to stand still and have our throats 
cut because the butcher chooses to soothe us with 
the operation of honeyed words. You can deceive 
ns no longer by the catch-words ‘ conciliation and 
harmony.’ Nor can our voices be stilled by the 
fear of incurring the reproach of imprudence . I 
said the other day, and I say now, that time for 
prudential action has gone by. It is this prudence, 


of which we have heard so much, that lias brought 
us to the situation in which we now are. It is this 
constant talk about prudential action which has in¬ 
duced the people of the North to believe that we 
do not intend to resist. 

“ There is a point at which prudence changes 
from a virtue to a vice , and it often happens that it 
is used only as another name for cowardice. It is 
not to be wondered at if our good brethren of the 
North have mistaken the one for the other, and 
have thus found courage to persist in a crusade 
which promised to be unattended with danger. I 
know not if they will thank me for undeceiving 
them, but it is my habit to deal plainly with all 
men; and I now proclaim that you have reached 
the utmost limit to ichich you can go. There is a 
line beyond which you must not pass. You have 
marched up to it, and now cross it if you dare .’’ 

Sir, is not that bold and striking language—lan¬ 
guage worthy of a southern man contending for 
the great interests and the honor of the South ? But 
he proceeds: 

“ 1 do not say this to intimidate. I do not be¬ 
lieve it will have that effect. On the contrary, I 
believe with the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. 
Calhoun,] that this movement will run its course, 
and end as all similar things have ended, in blood 
and tears. * * * He who cannot 

now trace out, step by step, each successive event 
of the future, has learned but little from the past 
history of mankind, and is ill fitted to be the law¬ 
giver of a nation. The North will not save the 
Union, and the South cannot, unless, indeed, we 
submit to indignities and wrongs of so degrading a 
character as would almost make our fathers 1 burst 
the cerements of the tomb,’ and come amongst us 
once more to denounce and disown the degenerate 
descendants who had disgraced a glorious ancestry. 
We know well what we have to expect; northern 
demands have assumed a form which it is impos¬ 
sible for us to misunderstand. First comes our 
exclusion from our territory; next, abolition in 
the District of Columbia—in the forts, arsenals,, 
dock-yards, &c.; then, the prohibition of the slave 
trade between the States; and finally, total aboli¬ 
tion. These results are just as certain, unless the 
first step is firmly resisted, as that the sun will rise 
to-morrow, and the night will follow his going 
down. Heretofore it has been pretended that it 
was not the purpose of any considerable body at 
the North to interfere with slavery in the States ; 
but this is an illusion which these resolutions have 
come in good time to dispel. I always knew it 
was false, but I did not expect to see the cloak so 
soon thrown aside. But even if it were true, I 
would still say I do not choose to place myself at 
your mercy. I will not exchange the fortifications 
which the Constitution has thrown around my 
rights for a frail reliance on your generosity or 
your forbearance. Concession never yet satisfied 
fanaticism, nor has the march of the wrong-doer 
ever been stayed by the supplications of the suf¬ 
ferer. Situated as we are, the impulse of manli¬ 
ness is the dictate of prudence. Our duty and our 
obvious policy alike demand that we should meet 
the danger on the threshold, and fall or conquer 
there. It is of no consequence by what name you 
choose to designate your aggression. When a 
principle is established, which must bring not only 
poverty, but desolation and death to the South, it 


is immaterial whether you call it Abolition, Free- 
soil, or, to use the phrase of the Senator from Ohio, 
[Mr. Chase,] free Democracy; the end is the same, 
and so should be the resistance also. When the 
fall of the out-works must follow the fall of the 
citadel, he is a poor commander who hesitates to 
risk everything in their defence. It is so with us; 
we cannot yield an inch of ground we now occupy, 
without compromising our safety, and, what is 
worse, incurring the reproach of eternal infamy. 
Ivone but children can be imposed upon by the 
miserable delusion that abolition will pause in the 
midst of its successes. * * * * 

“I have no threats to make; they are out of 
time and place. But I tell you, more in sorrow 
than in anger, not only that you must pause, but 
that you must retrace your steps. The guarantees 
of the Constitution must be respected and its pro¬ 
mises held sacred, or the most weak and timid man 
in the State I represent would scorn your alliance 
and shutter your confederacy. Indeed, I do not know 
but what it is now too late, and that this Union, 
over which you have preached so much, and about 
which so many eloquent sentences have been 
penned, is already at an end .” 

He considered the Union already at an end. 
That was upwards of twelve months ago ; and yet 
he is standing here now, after all the measures he 
was denouncing are consummated, its ardent cham¬ 
pion, and calling those who say it ought to be re¬ 
formed or dissolved, bad men. I go on: 

“ Certainly, you have severed many of its strong¬ 
est ties, and but little remains besides that formal 
separation which imbittered feelings must soon ren¬ 
der a necessity. You did enough to dissolve it 
when you commenced organized robberies of our 
property—when you murdered our citizens ''''— 

Yes, sir, that murder was before the Compro¬ 
mise. But now, since the Compromise, when an¬ 
other murder is perpetrated in the effort to enforce 
the fugitive slave law, where is his indignation? 
Who heard him say, in his late speech defending 
the Compromise and the execution of the fugitive 
slave law, anything charging the North with mur¬ 
ders ? 

—“when you murdered our citizens, when you vio¬ 
lated every constitutional obligation, and forgot 
every tie which bound us together as a people. Re¬ 
serve, then, your denunciations of disunion for 
yourselves. * * * However much I 

may have loved the Union, I love the liberties of 
my native land far more; and you have taught me 
that they may become antagonists—that the exis¬ 
tence of the one might be incompatible with the 
other.” 

He further says, “ you have violated every con¬ 
stitutional obligation and forgotten every tie that 
binds us as a people and concludes his speech, 
which is admirable in its tone and substance, de¬ 
scribing two classes of traitors, as follows : 

“There are two classes of these who have brought 
this Government to s the points at which we now 
stand—actuated by very different motives and prin¬ 
ciples, but equally culpable, and equally chargeable 
with the crime of treason to the land. The first is, that 
band of northern fanatics who, regardless of right, re¬ 
gardless of the Constitution, forgetful of all past obli¬ 


gations, and of ail moral and social ties, have excited 
and continued a wild and reckless warfare upon an 
institution of which they know nothing, and whose 
blessings or curses should have been alike indiffer¬ 
ent to them. The second class is one for whom 
I have less respect , and of whom I always speak 
with less patience. It is the timid, hesitating , shrink¬ 
ing portion in our own section of the Union , who are 
afraid to march tip to the line —to meet the oppressor 
on the confines, and hurl him back the very moment 
his footsteps press forbidden ground. ” 

At this time California was not yet in the Union, 
and the traitors in the South were the timid and 
shrinking who feared to resist. Are those less 
traitors who have submitted afterwards? Where is 
the Senator from Alabama now ? He continues : 

“ A great poet, in the story of his visit to the 
infernal regions, gives a description of certain souls 
which aptly applies to them. He found them out¬ 
side the gates of hell, and says : 

“ ‘Here with those catiff angels they abide, 

Who stood aloof in Heaven—to God untrue, 

Yet wanting courage with his fbes to side. 

Heaven cast them forth, its beauty not to stain, 

And hell refuses to receive them too— 

From them no glory could the damned obtain.’ ” 

Sir, according to this poetry, which he applies 
to others, if his present position is that of submis 
sion, he could have no glory with the damned. 
The infernal regions itself is not a fit place for him. 
Mark, Mr. President, I do not myself say that this 
is his position. I am using the Senator’s own 
words. I will go on with his brave positions. 

On the 11th of February—(for the Senator did 
not on one occasion only thus gallantly arraign 
those who were invading the rights of the South, 
or were disposed to surrender them—no, sir; again 
and again he couched his lance and dashed into the 
conflict; again and againhe met the cheerings, not 
of submissionists and compromisers here with 
whom he now stands, but of all the true and brave 
men in the South who looked here for counsel and 
guidance)—on the 11th of February a debate arose 
on the question whether a petition should be re¬ 
ceived, presented by the Senator from New Hamp¬ 
shire, praying that the Union should be dissolved. 
The Senator from Alabama said, in reply to the ( 
avowals of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Chase] and 
other northern Senators: 

“If Senators desire us to believe them sincere in 
their professions of love for the Union, that sincer¬ 
ity ought to be manifested by their conduct. Who 
has put the Union in danger? Not, the South; for 
we have committed no aggressions, and propose to 
commit none. We are responsible only for mak¬ 
ing known our determination to resist oppression , 
come from what quarter it may. It is the North, and 
the North alone, who are the agitators. It is the 
North alone by whom this fair fabric has been 
shaken to its centre ; and the allegation that there 
are southern disunionists, for the sake of disunion, 
is an unmitigated calumny, which shall not be pro¬ 
nounced in my hearing without being branded as it 
deserves. If you love the Union so much, cease 
your aggressions; pause in your efforts to destroy 
the Constitution, which is its only bond. You 
need be under no apprehensions for the Union, un¬ 
less your conduct makes its destruction a duty. 
From the South you have nothing to fear, so long 



8 


as you do not attempt to perpetrate a wrong.” 
[Remember, that all this time the Compromise is 
the matter under consideration.”] “I do not mis¬ 
understand the policy which causes you to de¬ 
nounce those who defend the rights of the weaker 
section—who have dared to step between power 
and its victim—as factionists and disorganizes.” 

His conclusion is very fine—worthy of a south¬ 
ern Senator, basely assailed and maligned because 
he does his duty. It is as follows: 

“For myself I have a duty before me, which can 
make no demands and impose no risks or annoy¬ 
ances that I am not ready to meet. Any one may 
pursue a pathway strewed with roses ; it requires 
men to tread where thorns and brambles cumber 
the way. I expected to be denounced—to be mis¬ 
understood by some, and calumniated by others.” 

That is applicable to myself. I have expected 
that I would be calumniated as he himself expected 
to be, for defending the rights and interests of the 
South. I am sorry that I must use this language 
of the Senator as being so applicable to himself. 
He says: 

“Much of this I cannot prevent; but when the 
charge is made here in my presence that I am a 
factionist, or that those who act with me are so, I 
shall repel it in terms that admit of no double mean • 
ing. Sir, I do not believe that there is a man in the 
entire South who desires disunion for itself. I hope, 
also, that there is not one who will suffer his rights 
to be invaded, or his honor tarnished, no matter 
what may be the cost of resistance. We mean, at 
all hazards, to defend the Constitution. If that is 
faction, we are guilty. If that is disunion, we are 
disunionists. If that is crime against the Republic, 
we have much to answer for. 

“I have heard enough, Mr. President, of hypo¬ 
critical whining about the Union from those who 
are its deadliest foes. If you want peace, you have 
only to say so. Let us alone. We ask no more. 
Or, if you will not do that, spare us your lamenta¬ 
tions. If you are determined to destroy the Con¬ 
stitution, be men, own it publicly, and take the 
responsibility. Do not seek to shift it to our 
shoulders.” 

Well, sir, that is not all. On the 20th of Febru¬ 
ary Mr. Clay’s resolutions came up for considera¬ 
tion in the Senate, and here is the way he discourses 
about the constitutionality of the admission of Cal¬ 
ifornia : 

“ If she has a right to form a Constitution and 
State government, her right to regulate the subject 
of slavery is unquestionable.” 

But he shows that, having no law of Congress 
authorizing her to form a Constitution and be a 
State, she was no State. He goes on as follows: 

“No territorial government was ever established 
in California. The people who framed its consti¬ 
tution were not inhabitants, in the legal meaning of 
the word. They were composed of Indians, Mex¬ 
icans, and a wild band of adventurers from every 
quarter of the globe, allured by the lust of gold to 
the shores of the Pacific, many of them without a 
permanent residence any where, and four-fifths of 
them without the remotest intention of remaining 
in the country whose organic law they undertook 
to establish. 

“ I do not speak without authority upon this 


point. I have here the message of the Governor of 
California, who, it is to be presumed, is acquainted 
with the character of the population of which he is 
the chief. He describes them as follows: 

“ ‘Already we have almost every variety of the 
human race among us—a heterogeneous mass of 
human beings, of every language and hue.’ 

“ Yet these persons, not citizens of the United 
States, owing no allegiance to this Government— 
not speaking our language even, or understanding 
our laws—undertake to erect a sovereign State out 
of our public domain ; and with a cool impudence, 
which almost commands admiration, call upon u& 
to sanction their action, and give validity to a most 

extraordinary usurpation. 

# ’ * # # * * 

“ In California no census has been taken ; there 
is no law fixing her boundaries; no law regulating 
the time, places, and manner of holding elections; 
no law to determine the qualifications of voters ; n» 
evidence and no reason to believe that she contains 
a free population equal to the present ratio of rep¬ 
resentation. A military governor, acting under the 
order of the President, usurped the power of Con¬ 
gress, directed the mode or manner of proceeding, 
substituted his will for lav/, and conducted to its 
final consummation a drama of fraud and trickenj 
urvparalleled in the annals of any land. In other 
times the actors in these lawless scenes would have 
been held to a fearful reckoning ; but the strength 
of party ties, and the usual shrinking of ordinary 
minds from the face of great dangers, have not only 
dissipated the sense of accountability, but left it a 
matter of doubt whether the Congress of the United 
States will not assume the act, and throw around 
its own shoulders a mantle more deadly than the 
poisoned shirt of Nessus. Instead of vindicating 
the majesty of the law, and trampling down a dan¬ 
gerous usurpation, we are merely deliberating 
whether temporary quiet may not be purchased by 
unmanly acquiescence. I say temporary quiet, be¬ 
cause all experience has demonstrated that no weak 
expedient ever sufficed to cure a serious evil. In 
political as in physical illness, the cause must be 
removed before the disease can be eradicated. The 
admission of California will do nothing towards ar¬ 
resting the current of abolition aggressions. It will 
be regarded every where as an ami-slavery triumph 
—as one more work carried—from the shelter of 
which the assailing party may the more effectually 
annoy and harass the assailed. Yet the Senator 
from Kentucky says that we yield nothing by as¬ 
senting to it. I quote his own language : 

“ ‘ Well, now, is there any concession in this 
resolution by either party to the other? I know 
that gentlemen who come from slaveholding States 
say the North gets all that it desires ; but by whom 
does it get it? Does it get it by any action of Con¬ 
gress? If slavery be interdicted within the limits 
of California, has it been done by Congress? No, 
sir. That interdiction is imposed by California 
herself.’ ” 

Now, hear his answer to Mr. Clay : 

“I answer, that every thingis conceded by the admis¬ 
sion of California. The whole matter in controversy 
terminates at once. The North gets all she ever asked 
—gets it by the action of Congress , in direct violation 
of the great legal principle, that the wrong-doer 
shall not profit by his own wrong. Who among 
us does not know that agitation in the State Iegis- 





9 


iatures and in the National Congress has prevented 
southern emigration to California, and placed the 
country in the power of those who have imposed 
this restriction ?S Who is there so blind as not to 
see that this has been the result of aggressions com¬ 
menced here? And who does not feel that Con¬ 
gress is responsible for the fact that slavery has 
been excluded? Property is timid. The slaveholder 
would not carry his property there, with a threat 
iianging over him, that it was to be taken from him 
by operation of law the moment he landed. Agita¬ 
tion , then, in Congress—repeated declarations made 
every where—in State legislatures, in conventions, 
by the press, from the pulpit even—that slavery 
should be excluded from California by law, have 
deprived us of our constitutional rights as certainly 
and effectually as any positive enactment could have 
done. And we are now asked, not only to submit 
to it, but to accept it as a boon, and be very thank¬ 
ful for the outrage. Sir, I prefer the Wilmot proviso 
direct. I prefer it, because it is bolder, plainer, and 
more manly. The robber who meets me on the 
highway, and demands the surrender of my prop¬ 
erty, leaves me at least the option of a contest, and 
is entitled to far more respect than the assassin who 
lurks behind the corner and stabs in the dark. So, 
sir, he who deprives me of my legal rights by open 
means, is always entitled to higher respect than he 
"who seeks to accomplish the same end by decep¬ 
tion and trickery. I hold, that whatever opposi¬ 
tion is due to the Wilmot proviso—whatever re¬ 
sistance it demands—is doubly due to this scheme of 
smuggling a sovereign State into the Union. Very 
probably this will be set down to the account of 
faction. It is the fashion so to denounce whatever 
is said by any southern man, which argues truth to 
Lis section of the Union.” 

The Senator from Alabama is now in favor of 
the Compromise; but in this speech he showed 
what sort of things compromises have been to the 
South. He then denounced them all, and the pro¬ 
posed Compromise of Mr. Clay in particular: 

“The great error, Mr. President, into which the 
Senator from Kentucky has fallen, and the one to 
which may be traced much that is wrong in his 
judgment, and all that is weak in his argument, is 
in supposing that there must, of necessity, be a 
compromise. The Constitution itself is a compro¬ 
mise, and a compromise with a compromise is 
something unheard of in law, and unknown in equi¬ 
ty. If the people of the North will not abide by a 
compromise deliberately made, and created, by 
common consent, into the paramount law of the 
land, what hope can we have that any less solemn 
covenant will restrain them in future? We want 
no compromise. A bond has been executed, and 
we are willing to abide by its terms. If we are to 
go on compromising away provision after provi¬ 
sion of the Constitution, it is better that it should 
be abrogated at once. In point of fact it is a nul¬ 
lity, or rather, to speak more correctly, it is power¬ 
less for protection, and potent only when it comes 
to aid northern aggression.” 

Here he says that the Constitution is a nullity, 
and something worse, because it is actually an in¬ 
strument in the hands of the North by which the 
South is .oppressed. “Let me illustrate my mean¬ 
ing,” he says, and he illustrates as follows : 

“The majority claim a given power, (no matter 


how extravagant, and no matter whether it relates 
to slavery or not;) the minority deny the exist¬ 
ence of any such power. After months, or it may 
be years, of fierce struggles and contentions, it is 
acceded to, and one-half is given up. In a little 
while another contest is begun for the remainder. 
Another compromise follows, and another half is 
yielded; and so on, until the stronger party gets 
all its demands. Sir, I want no compromise of 
this sort. I stand upon the Constitution. If a 
reckless and unprincipled majority choose to vio¬ 
late that instrument, there is a remedy, sharp and 
severe , it is true, but just and inevitable in its appli¬ 
cation. 

“ What, Mr. President, have we to compromise? 
What have we demanded? What favor even have 
we asked? Tell me, you who talk of compromises , 
what is it that southern men ask at your hands ? 
Nothing, sir; nothing. Humbler even than Laza¬ 
rus at the rich man’s gate, we have appealed to 
you neither for charity nor sympathy. What we 
have once given up we have never sought to re¬ 
claim. Whatever burdens the Constitution im¬ 
poses we are willing to bear. Beyond this no man 
ought td go, and no freeman will go. 

“ I have had occasion to say so much, in my 
short service here, of the Union and its value," of 
the wrongs to which we are subjected, and the ap¬ 
propriate remedy for them, that it is with the utmost 
reluctance I again approach the subject. The Sen¬ 
ator from Kentucky has favored us with a bloody 
and disastrous picture of disunion, and the Senator 
from Michigan, a short time afterwards, in a care¬ 
fully prepared speech, followed in the same lugu¬ 
brious strain. 

“ Mr. Cass. There was no preparation on the 
subject. The remarks never occurred to me until 
the moment they were uttered. 

“ Mr. Clemens. Well, that is a small matter. 
What I mean to assert is, that both of those Sena¬ 
tors endeavored to impress upon the country the 
belief that war must follow on the heels of disunion. 
Both of them, no doubt, believe that such is the 
case; but, in my deliberate judgment, all that is 
fancy merely. I cannot see why war should follow 
a separation. On the contrary, I think the good 
sense of both nations would teach them that, if 
they must part, it luid better be after the manner of 
the patriarch of old, and that each should say to 
the other, ‘ Let there be no strife, I pray thee, be¬ 
tween me and thee, nor between thy herdsmen and 
my herdsmen, for we be brethren.’ But if it 
should be otherwise; if war must come; if civil 
discord and fraternal strife should mar the beauty 
of the land, the responsibility must attach not to 
those who maintain the right, but to those in whom 
the dictates of justice have been silenced by the 
robber’s instinct. 

* * * # # * # 

“ l warn them that bloody pictures will scarcely 
frighten us from our propriety. We mean to de¬ 
fend our rights in all contingencies, and conse¬ 
quences must take care of themselves.” 

You see, sir, the Senator was not to be frightened 
by bloody pictures of disunion. At this time he 
held them in profound scorn and contempt. But 
turn to his last speech, which he delivered the other 
day, and you will see what a sombre pencil he 
uses in the same line. Then, again, speaking of 


10 


the Farewell Address of Washington, he used this 
language: 

“It is the constant practice of those who are 
seeking to oppress us, both in Congress and else¬ 
where, to descant with much pathos upon the 
Farewell Address of Washington, and to com¬ 
mend to our consideration his last advice to his 
countrymen. Sir, the memory of that great man 
should be like the fabled tree in the islands of the 
East, within whose shadow no unclean thing will 
harbor. His name should be a forbidden word 
when anything mean, or base, or selfish, is to be 
accomplished. Least of all should it ever be 
quoted to sanction meditated tyranny. He won an 
immortality of renown by resistance to oppression. 
His glory had its birth in sympathy for the 
wronged, and owed its brightness to rebellion. If 
he were living now, his whole history leaves no 
room to doubt on which side of this great contro¬ 
versy he would be found.” 

The President’s message, transmitting the con¬ 
stitution of California to the Senate, was transmit¬ 
ted on the 13th of February. On the 20th of Feb¬ 
ruary, on the question of reference, the Senator 
from Alabama addressed the Senate. It is a labored 
effort to prove that California cannot be admitted 
into the Union consistent ivith the Constitution. Mr. 
Clay had submitted his Compromise resolutions on 
the 29th of January, and on their character the 
Senator remarked as follows : 

“ After all the reflection which he [Mr. Clay] 
has been able to bestow upon the subject, aided by 
the resources of his long experience, and his great 
familiarity with difficult questions in trying times, 
he has been able to suggest no remedy which does 
not recognise the right of aggression on the one 
side, and demand an unconditional submission on 
the other. He has submitted for our consideration 
a series of resolutions, dignified with the name of 
‘a compromise,’ but which, like most other com¬ 
promises between the weak and the strong, is little 
better than a cloak to hide from the public gaze a 
hideous wrong. * * He comes forward now 

with a compromise which concedes everything de¬ 
manded by the North, and proposes nothing for 
the satisfaction of the South, but the reassertion, in 
less solemn form, of rights already guarantied and 
admitted.” 

On the 8th of May the Committee of Thirteen 
made their report. The Senator from Alabama 
immediately attacked it. He affirmed that the*re¬ 
port and the resolutions offered by Mr. Clay on 
the 29th January were the same in purport; and 
on this ground he rebuked Mr. Mangum for inti¬ 
mating an acquiescence in the Compromise mea¬ 
sures: 

“I ask,” he exclaimed, “in all sincerity, and 
with an anxious desire to be corrected if my im¬ 
pressions are erroneous, what is this report but a 
repetition of those resolutions? Where is there a 
solitary deviation from them in any vital point? 
The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] has been 
consistent; he has abided by his original plan ; and 
those of us who denounced it then cannot support 
it now, and claim the merit of consistency. To 
do so would be giving the lie direct to the declara¬ 
tions we then made.” “ The Senator from North 


Carolina speaks of liberality!—of the propriety 
and necessity of liberality! Sir, the Constitution 
is not a thing about which we are at liberty to ex¬ 
ercise that very commendable quality. It is not in 
my power to exercise liberality here. I have no 
right to trifle with my sworn duties. I am not 
here to compromise away the provisions of the 
Constitution.” 

See with what sternness and consistency he vin¬ 
dicates the rights and honor of the South. Not 
content with defending his own position, he attacks 
the enemies of the South, as he supposed them to 
be, who were willing to surrender her rights and 
honor. But he was not content to assail the Sena¬ 
tor from North Carolina alone. No, sir; he turned 
upon the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Foote] 
also, and portrayed his inconsistency exactly as I 
am doing now to him, [Mr. Clemens.] He took 
all the speeches of the Senator from Mississippi, 
and convicted him of the grossest inconsistency, 
and, as Mr. Foote understood him, denounced him 
as a traitor. Previously, when co-operating in the 
great cause of the South together, he had paid a 
very high compliment to the Senator from Missis¬ 
sippi, which I will read. He and Mr. Foote had 
been attacked by some letter-writers, whilst stand¬ 
ing forward as the gallant leaders of the South. 
They were the Diomedes, sir, in that contest, 
although we had a Ulysses, and stood in the fore¬ 
most rank of our combatants. On . the 11th of 
February, in the debate on the petition presented 
by Mr. Hai.e, praying that the Union should be 
dissolved, the Senator from Alabama said : 

“ But recently I noticed that some small-fry poli¬ 
tician, whose name I do not remember—some 
minnow in the waters of Pennsylvania politics— 
electrified his little auditory by the declaration that 
he had just as much respect for Wilmot as for 
Clemens or Foote. I hope the Senator from 
Mississippi will survive this assault, and that he 
will not drown himself in despair. I venture even 
to hope that he will not be silenced by it. The 
South has yet much need of my honorable friend. 
His genius, his talents, his energy, his readiness to 
defend the right, his fearless denunciation of the 
wrong, his unrivalled powers of sarcasm and in¬ 
vective, are each and all familiar acquaintances, 
with which I should be very unwilling to part at a 
crisis like the present.” 

There was a crisis, occasioned by the pretensions 
of the North to exclude us from all of our terri¬ 
tory, and these Senators stood side by side, de¬ 
nouncing Mr. Clay and Mr. Benton, and all those 
in the South who were in favor of the admission 
of California into the Union, with her anti-slavery 
constitution. But when Mr. Foote went for the 
admission of California, and supported the report 
of the Committee of Thirteen, the Senator from 
Alabama stood out against him manfully, and ar¬ 
raigned his consistency. If I had known of these 
speeches when Mr. Foote assailed me the other 
day, I might have read them as my best defence, 
for then I should have better shown his inconsist¬ 
ency and treachery. The Senator from Alabama 
denounced the Compromise as a “ shameless sur¬ 
render,” not a compromise, and the dismember¬ 
ment of Texas, which it proposes, in the following 
strain: 





11 


“ It is well the Senator [Mr. Foote] informed 
us that he had no regard for consistency.” 

When a man says he has no regard for consist¬ 
ency, it is very much like what Dogberry says of 
writing himself down an ass. There may be a 
want of consistency, perhaps, without fault; but 
to say that he does not regard consistency, is a 
proof of gross moral deficiency : 

“He proposes, now, to cut off ten degrees of 
latitude from the State of Texas—enough for three 
free States—which we have his authority for say¬ 
ing will be infallibly subject to the Wilmot proviso. 
He proposes, further, to tax us ten or fifteen mil¬ 
lions of dollars for the privilege of making them 
free States, and adding to the vast power now 
threatning to crush us ; and then, by way of ad¬ 
ding the most galling insult to the deepest injury, 
he demands that we accept this outrage as com¬ 
pensation for the admission of California.” 

He denounced, also, the admission of California, 
and shows Mr. Foote’s inconsistency on this point; 
and in reply to certain letter writers, who had said 
that Mr. Foote’s national reputation would not allow 
him to be ultra , he observes as follows: 

“ It may not be amiss, however, to say a few 
words of this thing called national reputation. It 
is something I value very lightly. We all know a 
process by which any of us may secure it. It is 
not even beyond my grasp. I should only have to 
turn traitor to my convictions of duty, and abandon 
the interests of the South, to change entirely the 
notes of that whole pack of curs who are now 
yelping at my heels. Sir, I want no national repu¬ 
tation - , purchased at such a price. I spurn it as I 
would any other foul and loathsome thing.” 

It is not at all surprising that Mr. Foote should 
consider the above language as charging him with 
being a traitor. In conclusion, he speaks in the 
following strain of Mr. Foote, and his position, 
that we should take the Compromise as the best 
we could get: 

“I have now shown that every feature of this 
Compromise, when taken separately, has met the 
strong and decided disapproval of the Senator from 
Mississippi. What healing virtue there is in tack¬ 
ing them all together, 1 confess myself wholly un¬ 
able to comprehend. Not long since, he declared 
that the admission of California would dissolve the 
Union in six months. 

“ A few more words, Mr. President, and I am 
done. I am told I ought to take this bill because 
it is the best 1 can get. Sir, I do not know that; 
but if I did, the same argument might be urged 
with equal foree in favor of unconditional submis¬ 
sion to any wrong ever perpetrated by the strong 
against the weak. Good God, sir, has it come to 
this, that an American Senator is to ask himself, 
not whether a measure is unjust, iniquitous, and 
oppressive, but whether it is the best he can do? 
Not whether he will consent to wear chains at all, 
but whether the links are to be round or square? 
Not whether he will bare his shoulders to the lash, 
but what is the color of the cow-hide with which 
they are to be inflicted ? Sir, when I consent to 
ask myself such questions, I hope the walls of this 
Capitol will fall upon me and crush me. When I 
stop to inquire into the degree of oppression, rather 


than the fact, I shall feel that degradation has 
reached its lowest deep, and existence is but the 
privilege to be infamous.” 

This is proud and noble language, worthy of a 
true southern man and a southern Senator, on the 
great question whether the people of the South were 
to be turned out of a domain richer than Ormus or 
the Ind. Alas! where is he now? Upon his 
charging upon Mr. Foote his inconsistencies, and 
virtually calling him a traitor, worthy to have the 
Capitol crush him as a base, vile thing, unworthy 
to live and scarcely to die, Mr. Foote, with his 
usual adroitness, turned round and charged him 
with abolition affinities, precisely as he [Mr. 
Clemens] did towards me the other day, when he 
drew his picture of the scene in the Senate Cham¬ 
ber. Now, here is his answer to Mr. Foote, which 
I will give as the best answer I can make to his 
charges against me: 

“The Senator says he will not suspect the pro¬ 
priety of his course until he finds himself in com¬ 
pany with free-soilers and abolitionists. Ah, sir, 
is that the rule by which he judges of the right 
and wrong? Does he propose to inquire who is 
for a measure and who against it, before making 
up his mind as to its justice? Sir, he ought to 
bear in mind that some of those with whom he is 
now acting, are not altogether free from the same 
taint. It may, it will, be that on the final vote 1 
shall find myself in company with some of those 
he has mentioned; but if he does not understand 
the reason, I can explain it to him in a very few 
words. They demand the Wilmot proviso direct: 
the bill the Senator favors, only proposes to give it 
to them covertly. They demand one-half of Tex¬ 
as; and the bill only gives them a little more than 
one-third. They demand that fugitives shall not 
be given up : the Compromise only throws around 
the master the shackles of a trial by jury. Hence 
their opposition. Mine arises from the fact that 
too much is conceded. The abolitionists propose 
to enslave us at once; the Compromise arrives at 
the same end by a more circuitous route. I shall 
resist both; but, if the truth must be told, I prefer 
the direct to the indirect attack.” 

Mr. President, when the bill admitting California 
into the Union finally came up on its passage, the 
Senator from Alabama entered a protest, not a 
speech ; he called it a protest against her admission. 
He fought to the last, and, although vanquished, 
he held his proud crest still higher, breathing defi¬ 
ance to our foes. He then reiterated his objections 
to the bill as strongly as he had done before, and 
assailed the Senator from Michigan, for his new 
doctrine of squatter sovereingty, in terms of great 
severity, and told him he had been deceived a s to 
his views in Alabama, and had been the instrument 
of deceiving others. He had supported his views, 
in his construction of the Nicholson letter, as con¬ 
sistent with the rights of the South. He concluded 
in the following solemn strain : 

“Mr. President, other Senators have spoken the 
probable action of the States they represent upon 
the passage of this bill. I do not know what Ala¬ 
bama may do. That her action will be character¬ 
ized by wisdom and firmness, I have not the least 
doubt. I am not here to dictate to her what she 
ought to do. I am the servant, not the leader of 


12 


her people. Whatever they do, 1 shall do in de¬ 
spite of Executive menaces, and of all the bloody 
H pictures other hands may exhibit to our view. 
B Born upon the soil of the State while it was yet a 
B Territory, we have grown up together. Time after 
B time she has committed her interests to my hands. 
Bl Again and again she has trusted and promoted me ; 
IF and I recognise no allegiance to any power higher 
f than I owe to her. When she commands, I will 
obey. If she determines to resist this law by force, 
| by secession, by any means, I am at her service, in 
I' whatever capacity she desires to employ me. If 
this is treason, I am a traitor—a traitor who glories 
in the name.” 

Is not that in a noble strain? I have no doubt 
f that there is not a heart here which does not glow 
j at this high and brilliant annunciation of self-sacri- 
( fice and devotion to his native State. He continues: 

“ I know, sir, that the President, in his late letter 
to the Governor of Texas, has assumed the right of 
t the Government to coerce a sovereign State. I 
deny that there is anything in the Constitution, 
anything in the laws, to justify such an assump- 
; lion. The law is plain and clear—individuals, not 
States, are the subjects of coercion. If any State 
should secede, let him, if he dare, attempt to em¬ 
ploy military force to compel her return. He will 
j soon find, in that event, that he has more than a 
!, State to deal with, and that the powers and re¬ 
sources of this Government are wholly inadequate 
to the tasks he has undertaken. The federal doc- 
1 trine that all power lodges here has been somewha". 
widely repudiated; and the denial of State sover¬ 
eignty, either North or South, can bring to the 
Executive nothing but contempt.” 

Mark how he speaks of State sovereignty—that 
to deny State sovereignty can bring nothing, either 
in the North or the South, but contempt. I will 
afterwards show you that he denies that the States 
are sovereign at all, in the speech delivered here the 
other day. He continues : 

“ I hold that my first allegiance is due to my 
State ; and that treason cannot be committed against 
any power while obeying her mandates. Such 
opinions have recently been unsparingly denounced; 
but let me warn those who resort to such weapons 
that they may be used by more than one side. 
There are more traitors than traitors to the Union.” 

There are more traitors than traitors to the 
Union ! He means, I suppose, that those southern 
men who supported these Compromise measures on 
this floor, and asserted that if a State should secede 
it was treason, were traitors themselves. Mr. Clay 
had made this assertion, and even expressed the 
hope that they (the secessionists) might meet a 
traitor’s doom. It was in reply to that position, I 
presume, that the Senator from Alabama uses this 
language: 

“ Sir, I impugn no man’s motives who lets mine 
alone. I question the purity of no man’s conduct 
who does not provoke retaliation by assailing others; 
but when men intimate that obedience to the man¬ 
dates of my State is treason, they must expect to 
hear in return that, in my opinion, there are those 
in this land, and about this Capitol, who would sell 
their souls to Satan for the privilege of having a 
hand in President-making, cabinet-making, andlthe 


subsequent distribution of the public offices. There 
are those who would sell their Saviour, were he 
again upon earth, for half the price that Judas ac¬ 
cepted to betray him. 

“ Denunciations, sir, are weapons that two can 
use; and, if any one expects to employ them 
against me with impunity, he miscalculates sadly 
the character of the man he assails. 

I have said all I think it necessary to say. I 
did not mean to argue the bill here. *1 shall, if ne¬ 
cessary, argue it at home.” 
s 

Sir, he did argue it at home. He became a sub- 
missionist, and did all he could in his State to quell 
the proud spirit of resistance he himself had con¬ 
tributed to raise in Alabama. After all these brave 
and sounding words and fiery resolves, he repeats 
the course he had pursued in Alabama, and here in 
the Senate advocates the Compromise from begin¬ 
ning to end—goes for submission utter and entire* 
and denounces those who will not follow his down¬ 
ward path in submission as traitors. He at first 
denounced on this door those who went for the 
Compromise as traitors, whilst he held forth defy¬ 
ing resistance; now, he wheels round and de¬ 
nounces those who propose only to follow his brave 
counsels of resistance as traitors, because they will 
not bow to an ignominious surrender—to a gross 
outrage, as lie characterizes it. What can censure 
from such a man be worth ? In denouncing others 
he but denounces himself, and stands forth self- 
convicted. 

I come now to the speech delivered here the other 
day—the last in my series of proof. I will show 
you what Mr. Jerry Clemens, Senator from Ala¬ 
bama, is in December, 1851. I have read to you 
the first paragraph of his speech. In a subsequent 
part he approves the whole Compromise. He 
says: 

“ Mr. President, it was not my fortune to agree 
with those patriotic men who framed the Compro¬ 
mise. I doubted its healing effects; but, even when 
differing from them, I respected their motives, and 
felt that Rome, in its proudest day, never assembled 
a Senate of loftier intellect or purer patriotism.” 

Why, I thought he had denounced those Sena¬ 
tors who voted for the Compromise as men who 
would sell their souls to Satan for office—who 
would sell their Saviour for half the price Judas 
received. He continues : 

“ But now, sir, when the work is accomplished, 
and its good effects are visible everywhere, 1 bow 
to their superior wisdom, and ask only the hum¬ 
ble privilege of assisting to maintain it.” 

It is, indeed, an “humble privilege.” In my es¬ 
timation, rather than to make the speech which 
proclaims it, the Senator from Alabama had better, 
like Cranmer, have put his hand into the flames 
and have it burnt to ashes. 

He formally denounced the admission of Cali¬ 
fornia as unconstitutional. In this speech he now 
affirms that it was constitutional. I will read what 
he says: 

“The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Rhett] 
says the admission of California was unconstitu¬ 
tional, because the Constitution provides only for 
the admission of Slates. If I had not heard this 
same argument advanced at home by abler men 





13 


than the Senator, I would not hesitate to pronounce 
it pure nonsense. The Constitution provides only 
for the admission of a State. True; but it is the 
act of admission which makes it a State. Some 
thirty-three years ago, you, sir, were sitting in a 
convention in the then Territory of Alabama, 
framing a Constitution upon which you asked to 
be admitted into the Union. Did you imagine 
that you were committing the folly of asking that 
which Congress had no right to grant? Suppose 
some wiseacre had risen in that convention and 
informed you that the Constitution provided only 
for the admission of States —that Alabama was a 
Territory, and therefore could not be admitted into 
the Union—what would have been your opinion, 
not merely of his constitutional learning, but of his 
common sense? From that period to this, with 
only a short intermission, you have held a seat in 
this body. Has it ever occurred to you that you 
were here unconstitutionally, and that in the very 
act of taking your seat you violated the instrument 
you were sworn to support? There are but three 
cases, I believe, in our history in which States 
have been admitted into the Union—Vermont, Ken¬ 
tucky, and Texas. All the rest came in as Terri¬ 
tories; and if the position of the Senator fr»m 
South Carolina be correct, the early fathers of the 
Republic, the framers of the Constitution, knew 
nothing of the fundamental law they established. 
But, sir, while the Senator from South Carolina 
denies to California the right to come in because 
she was not a State, he yet contends, with that re¬ 
markable consistency which characterizes many of 
the opponents of the Compromise, that Missouri 
did have that right. Now, sir, the only difference 
between the two cases is, that Missouri had a reg¬ 
ular territorial government, and California never 
had. But they were both Territories neverthe¬ 
less, and neither could ever become anything else 
without the assent of Congress. The people of 
both adopted a constitution, and sent it here for 
approval. When approved, they both became 
States, but not until then.” 

Now, here is his affirmation that California was 
constitutionally admitted, because, as he argues, 
she was admitted precisely like other States. They 
were Territories, as she was ; and the act of ad¬ 
mission made her a State. All the other States, 
Alabama included, were Territories when they 
were admitted : so California, being a Territory 
when she was admitted, was admitted as constitu¬ 
tionally as they were admitted. There is the ar¬ 
gument. I have in my hand the act of Congress 
admitting Alabama as a State into the Union. 
The truth is, Mr. President—and you know it 
very well—no Territory has ever been admitted 
into this Union as a State. In every instance the 
course pursued has been this : Congress passed an 
act authorizing the people in the Territory to 
adopt a constitution and form a State. The people 
get together, make a government, adopt a constitu¬ 
tion, put the machinery of their State government 
into operation, and apply here for admission as a 
State. They are States, and they come in as 
States. Under the clause of the Constitution au¬ 
thorizing Congress to admit new States into the 
Union, their territorial garb is thrown away, and 
they come here robed in all the dignity of free and 
independent sovereignties. Alabama, the Sena¬ 
tor’s own State, was admitted in that way. The 


act of Congress passed for the admission of Ala¬ 
bama begins thus : 

“That the inhabitants of the Territory of Ala¬ 
bama be, and they are hereby, authorized to form 
for themselves a constitution and State govern¬ 
ment, and to assume such name as they deem 
proper; and that the said Territory, when formed 
into a State, shall be admitted into the Union upon 
the same footing with the original States in all re- 
sp<%s whatsoever.” 

They agreed to form themselves into a free and 
independent State, and they did so. So it wa^. 
with Missouri. Here is what the people of that 
State did : 

“We, the people of Missouri, inhabiting the 
limits hereinafter designated, by our representa¬ 
tives in convention, assembled at St. Louis, on the 
twelfth day of June, 1820, do mutually agree to 
form and establish a free and independent republic, 
by the name of the State of Missouri ; and for the 
government thereof do ordain and establish this 
constitution.” 

Missouri was a State, Alabama was a State, and 
all the other States that have arisen from Territo¬ 
ries were full sovereignties when they came to be 
admitted into the Union. How was it with Mis¬ 
souri? Missouri adopted a constitution in 1820. 
She was not admitted, I think, until 1822. Where 
was she, then, before she was admitted into the 
Union ? She had all her offices in full operation— 
her executive, her legislative, and her judicial de¬ 
partments of her government organized. And was 
she not a State ? Could she not have remained a 
State? Was not Alabama a free and independent 
State, as her constitution affirms, when she applied 
for admission? It must have been so, or she could 
not have been admitted; I hesitate not to say, that if 
she had not been a State, it would have been a gross 
violation of the Constitution to have admitted her 
into the Union. You, Mr. President, never sup- 
osed, when you came here to represent her as a 
tate, that she was a Territory. No, sir. The 
Senator from Alabama does not know the birth of 
his own State. 

How could the admission of Senator's here make 
a State ? Unless the people had previously organ¬ 
ized the State, no act of Congress admitting them 
as States could make them such. 

I think, then, the argument of the Senator in 
favor of the constitutionality of the admission of 
California is not of great potency. It is based 
upon a denial that the people of his own State 
were the authors of their own rights and liberty. 
They owe their existence, not to their own voli¬ 
tion, but to others. Let him glory in such a pa¬ 
rentage for his State, if he pleases. He must be 
har-d driven for an argument to sustain his new 
position. After affirming that the admission of 
California was unconstitutional, he resorts to these 
expedients to prove the contrary, and to nullify his 
own previous arguments. 

As 1 said, he now supports the whole Compro¬ 
mise. So staunch is his adherence that he even 
says he would not repeal the law by which the 
slave-trade is prohibited in this District, under the 
penalty of emancipation. But the dangerous fea¬ 
ture in this bill—all that the South cared to oppose 
—was the usurpation on the part of Congress of 
the power to emancipate the slaves in this District. 


14 


That is what we objected to in that aet. Yet the 
Senator says he would not vote to repeal this act. 
He is willing to let the legislation by which slaves 
are emancipated in this District remain to be ap¬ 
plied in future, by the same course of reasoning, 
to the States. He is certainly enamored of the 
Compromise. 

He becomes, too, an apologist for the manner in 
which the fugitive slave law is executed. Here 
are the meek, and comely, and honeyed word^in 
which he apologises for the execution of the act. 
He says : 

“ That it has been occasionally evaded in other 
laces, is true; and that in some instances it has 
een resisted by violence, I do not deny. But that 
was to have been expected. It is so, and always 
will be so, of all laws in a country like ours. No 
man ever believed when this law was passed that 
it would be executed in every instance. No man 
ever believed so of any law framed by the wisdom 
of man. It is sufficient that this law has been ex¬ 
ecuted as faithfully as other laws. Occasional 
failures by no means warrant any one in asserting 
that it is in effect a dead letter. There is not a law 
upon our statute books which is not sometimes 
evaded. There is not a year in which criminals do 
not escape the penalties prescribed by the law 
against murder; but that is no reason for the re¬ 
peal of the law. It is better that the life of the 
citizen should be imperfectly protected than not 
protected at all. So in the present case, if the law 
does not secure the certain return of every fugitive, 
it does as much as any human law can do ; and I 
can construe in but one way the conduct of that 
southern man who desires to continue agitation 
about it.” 

His assertion is, that the fugitive slave law has 
been enforced as well as any other law—as laws 
against murder or theft. Now, what is the fact? 
Just about the time when the Senator was deliver¬ 
ing his speech, the Christiana rioters were having 
a glorious triumph in their unanimous release from 
its penalties. The murder of a citizen of Mary¬ 
land had been consummated under this very act in 
the State of Pennsylvania. Yet, when in my 
speech 1 ventured to suggest that not a hair of the 
head of one of these Christiana rioters would be 
touched, the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Brodhead] rose and intimated that I cast an as¬ 
persion on his State, and broadly maintained that 
his State was true to the Constitution and would 
enforce the laws. He feared rather that the inno¬ 
cent would be punished than that the guilty would 
escape. How stands the final result? Every one 
of the Christiana rioters has been released from 
all penalties, and released in such a form and man¬ 
ner that I saw in the “Union,” the other day, a 
letter from a Virginian, inquiring whether there 
was such a thing as getting back a negro at all in 
the free States. The writer said there was a great 
many people in his part of the country who de¬ 
sired to recapture their slaves; but from the ap¬ 
pearance of things, from the release of those men 
in Pennsylvania, it seemed to be hopeless for a 
southern man to attempt to reclaim his slave. 
That was published here not a week ago; and 
yet the Senator from Alabama says that this law 
has been enforced as well as other laws. Did 
he ever hear of other laws where a prisoner 
was rescued in a court of justice in open day, with 


all the guards and sanctity of justice around it? 
Does he know of any law of the land where those 
who go to enforce it are deliberately murdered, and 
every criminal, without any exception, from Mas¬ 
sachusetts to Pennsylvania, have all gone free of 
punishment? Why, it seems that just in propor¬ 
tion as time developes the fact, that the South has 
obtained nothing by this Compromise—that so far 
from having gained anything, she has only earned 
contempt—the sympathies, the feelings, and the 
support of some southern men seem to cling closer 
to its support. The worse it is, the more they love 
it. The more they are degraded, the more they 
humble themselves. I see that, according to the 
census returns for the year ending the 30th of June, 
1850, upwards of 1,000 fugitive slaves escaped to 
the North from the South. That amounts to 
$800,000 worth of property at the market value 
of slaves. Maryland alone has lost 379 fugitives 
during that year. How many fugitive slaves who 
have thus fled to the North have been rendered up? 
Whenever one is recovered by stealth, by conni¬ 
vance, or assent—for some of them come back of 
their own accord—it is heralded forth as a great 
proof of the enforcement of the law; but how many 
of tltfse 1,000 slaves has the law restored? Not 
one, probably, in one hundred. Yet just at this 
time, when the census is printed, showing our con¬ 
dition in relation to this law; when the North 
every where treats this feature of the Compromise 
with demonstrations of defiance and contempt; it is 
at this time that a party rallies in the South, and 
goes for tire Compromise!—the Compromise!— 
everything for the Compromise! As my distin¬ 
guished predecessor said in his dying moments, 
“ The South !—the poor South ! God knows what 
is to become of her.” 

I have read to you extracts from the speeches of 
the Senator from Alabama to show that lie not on¬ 
ly advocated resistance and secession, but said that 
if a State seceded he would dare the Government 
to interfere. Now, what do you think he says in 
the last speech of his, to which I refer? He denies 
the right of secession; and he denies it first on au¬ 
thority, and then for reasons. I will read his au¬ 
thority: 

“We are told that authority for the right of se¬ 
cession is to be found in the resolutions of ’98 and 
’99. So many men have sought to sustain absurd 
theories by referring to these resolutions that I pre¬ 
sume we ought not to be surprised even at this last 
and weakest attempt of all. Nor in this age of 
progress is it to be wondered at that the wisdom of 
the disciple should far outrun that of the teacher. 
John C. Calhoun and George McDuffie examined 
the resolutions of ’98 and ’99 for the right of se¬ 
cession, and could not find it. They found, as 
they thought, nullification; but nullification is itself 
a denial of secession. We all know that some of 
the ablest efforts made by both of these great men 
were to establish that nullification was the rightful 
remedy.” 

Of Mr. Calhoun he said: 

“Sir, I believe I loved him better while living, 
and respect him more now, than any one of those 
who make use of his name to give respectability to 
treason. He was never a secessionist, and I am 
authorized to say that the proof will before long be 
given to the world. He regarded the attempt of a 



15 


single State to go out of the Union as madness, and 
died in that opinion.” 

Here is the assertion that the resolutions of 1798 
and 1799 do not sanction secession. Now, I un¬ 
derstand there is a proposition in circulation in the 
other branch of Congress amongst members to 
print the Virginia report and resolutions of 1898— 
99, and by circulating them let the people judge for 
themselves what are the doctrines they contain. 
Will the Senator from Alabama subscribe or not? 
If he will not subscribe, I will subscribe a thousand 
copies for him if he will promise to frank them to 
his constituents, and by this means he will show 
his sincerity and put down secession. Sir. they do 
advocate secession, because they do advocate State 
sovereignty. They deny, what he affirms, that the 
Supreme Court of the United States is the arbiter 
between States. They affirm that each of the 
States has a right to construe the compact of the 
Constitution existing between them, and, constru¬ 
ing the compact, they have a right to determine 
whether it has been violated, and the mode and 
measure of redress. These are the positions as¬ 
sumed in the report and resolutions of 1798—’99. 

The only difference between the republican party 
and South Carolina in 1832 and 1833 as to nullifi¬ 
cation was this: The republicans in Virginia and 
elsewhere maintained that the resolutions of 1798 
and 1799 affirmed secession; we maintained that 
they affirmed nullification. They said we could 
not remain in the Union and nullify its laws, but 
that each State had a right tp secede from the Union 
as a consequence of her sovereignty. There is 
really no incompatibility between these positions. 
They perfectly harmonize. If a State has a right 
to nullify, it has a right to secede. 

But the Senator says that John C. Calhoun was 
not an advocate of secession, and that it will soon 
be proved by somebody that he denied this right in 
a State. On page 301 of Mr. Calhoun’s late work, 
the Senator from Alabama, if he ever reads it, will 
find these words: 

“ That a State, as a party to the constitutional 
compact, has a right to secede, acting in the same 
capacity in which it ratified the Constitution as a 
compact, cannot, with any show of reason, be de¬ 
nied by any one who regards the Constitution as a 
compact. This results, necessarily, from the na¬ 
ture of a compact where the parties to it are sove¬ 
reign, and of course have no higher authority to 
which to appeal.” 

These are the words of Mr. Calhoun, holding 
his dying pen; and if he had said anything else he 
would have belied all his doctrines and his intelli¬ 
gence itself. Let the man step forth who will prove 
that Mr. Calhoun was opposed to secession. I 
hope the Senator will soon bring him out into open 
day. That man does not live who will venture to 
attempt to prove that Mr. Calhoun falsified his own 
great work by contrary opinions; and, mark what 
I say, if he does live, and ever had any such de¬ 
sign, he will never lift his head to assert it. Mr. 
Calhoun was surrounded by too many friends when 
living to be abused by his enemies when dead. He 
has sons who regard the honor of their parent, and 
who will protect his name and his reputation. And 
let the slanderers stand forth and dare to say, that 
in defiance of his whole course of life, and his last 
written work, he denied the right of a State to se¬ 
cede; let them come forth if they dare. 


Sir, neither Mr. Jefferson, nor Mr. Calhoun, nor 
Mr. McDuffie, nor the resolutions of 1798 and 1799 
deny the right of secession. I will not say any¬ 
thing about Mr. Jefferson. His most malignant 
enemies—the consolidationists and abolitionists— 
dare not attribute such a sentiment to him. John 
Quincy Adams, holding the pen and describing 
Mr. Jefferson’s opinions, could not so stultify him¬ 
self as to do otherwise than acknowledge that Mr. 
Jefferson maintained the right of a State to secede 
from the Union. Consolidationist as he was, he 
had too much integrity and honesty to falsify the 
opinions of a dead statesman. These are the au¬ 
thorities of the Senator from Alabama; and now 
let me come to his reasoning, which is just as con¬ 
clusive as his authorities. He says: 

“I apprehend, Mr. President, that a great deal 
of the misapprehension which exists in relation to 
this matter grows out of the too loose application 
of the word‘sovereign’to the States. We speak 
habitually of sovereign States, as if their sovereign¬ 
ty was absolute and unquestioned. But there is 
no such thing as a sovereign State within the limits 
of this Union. The Constitution has expressly de¬ 
nied it.” 

There is assertion broad and strong. “There is 
no such thing as a sovereign State within the limits 
of this Union,” says the Senator from Alabama. 
“The Constitution has expressly denied it.” 
Where? In what clause? I have read the Consti¬ 
tution all over, and can see no expression in it de¬ 
nying the sovereignty of the States, or the conse¬ 
quent right of secession. If there be any such 
clause in the Constitution, let it be produced. It 
will settle at once the whole question. 

The Senator continues: 

“ The Constitution has taken away from the 
States some of the highest and most essential attri¬ 
butes of sovereignty. They cannot coin money; 
they cannot emit bills of credit; they cannot punish 
treason against themselves; they cannot go to war; 
they cannot enter into compacts with other States; 
nay more, the Constitution provides that the Con¬ 
stitution and laws of the United States shall be the 
supreme law of the land, anything in the Consti¬ 
tution or laws of any State to the contrary notwith¬ 
standing. Now, who ever heard of a sovereignty 
within the laws of another power superior to its 
own within its own limits?” 

Because the States have surrendered the power 
of coining money, and making war and peace, to 
the General Government, therefore he argues that 
the States are not sovereign. Are not alliances, 
offensive and defensive, common among nations, in 
which they agree to make war and peace together? 
Did any one ever suppose that they renounced 
their sovereignty by such agreements? As to coin¬ 
ing money , it has been gravely proposed in Europe 
that all nations should consent to one coinage. That 
is a mere matter of commercial convenience. But 
there is one test, the power to punish treason, 
which the Senator says the States do not possess. 
If this is true, I will give up the question, and I 
will never again open my mouth in defence of State 
sovereignty and State rights. If a State cannot 
punish treason, it is clear it cannot be sovereign. 
The very definition of sovereignty is supremacy. 
Its duty is protection. The duty of the citizen is 
allegiance, and treason is a violation of allegiance. 


16 


If, therefore, a State cannot punish treason—if it 
cannot punish a violation of allegiance—there can¬ 
not be such a thing as State sovereignty. But how 
stands the matter? The Senator is altogether mis¬ 
taken in his assertion. His own State constitution 
has a clause punishing treason, which I will read 
to the Senate. In the constitution of Alabama, the 
sixth article and fifteenth clause reads: 

“ Treason against the State shall consist only in 
levying war against it, or aiding or adhering to its 
enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person 
shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimo¬ 
ny of two witnesses to the same overt act, or his 
own confession in open court. 11 

There is the constitution of his own State, upon 
which she was admitted into this Union ; and that 
constitution distinctly affirms that she has a right 
to punish treason, and therefore that she is sover¬ 
eign. I have not looked into the constitutions of 
all the States; but in the constitution of Missouri, 
(13th article, 15th clause,) there is the same pro¬ 
vision ; so in the constitution of Kentucky, (6th 
article, 2d clause;) Indiana, (article 11th, clause 
2d ;) Louisiana, (title 6th, article 90;) Mississippi, 
(article 7th, clause 3;) Florida, (article 16, clause 
4;) Arkansas, (article 9, clause 2;) Texas, article 
7, clause 2;) Wisconsin, (article 1, clause 10 ;) and, 
last of all, Iowa, (article 2, clause 16.) Every one 
of these—all of them new States—have been ad 
mitted into the Union with this clause in their con¬ 
stitutions, in which they assert the right of punish¬ 
ing treason, and consequently the right to the alle¬ 
giance of their citizens, of which treason is the 
violation. Look at the construction these facts 
afford ; Congress, at every successive act approving 
of these constitutions, endorses the right of the 
States to punish treason, and therefore affirms the 
sovereignty and independence of the States. That 
is in perfect consistency with the Constitution of 
the United States. That Constitution says, that 
treason against the United States shall consist in 
levying war against them , and in adhering to their 
enemies, and giving them aid and comfort. “ Their 
enemies 11 —enemies of the States. The Constitu¬ 
tion of the United States itself describes the States 
as sovereigns, against whom treason may be com¬ 
mitted in their united capacity. And when, after¬ 
wards, Congress approved the State constitutions, 
in which treason is defined, and a power is ex¬ 
pressed to punish it against the States, it is in per¬ 
fect harmony with the Constitution of the United 
States; and both the Constitution of the United 
States and the constitutions of the States which 
have been admitted into the Union, go to show that 
the States alone are sovereign. The Constitution 
of the United States does not say that treason may 
be committed against the Government of the Uni¬ 
ted States or the Union. No, sir; it is against the 
States that treason can alone be committed, whether 
acting together in the Union, or as separate States. 
Therefore I say, that the Constitution of the United 
States and the constitution of all the States teach 
but one doctrine, contrary to the affirmation of the 
Senator from Alabama, and that doctrine is, that 
the States are sovereign. His own State punishes 
treason. If he can nullify the constitution of his 
own State, and cast her out of existence—if he can 
degrade her into a wretched dependency on this 
Government, which can be trampled upon with 
impunity, and dare not lift the front of resistance— 


let him do it, and take all the glory of such an 
achievement. For my part, it is my glory, as well 
as my privilege, that I am a citizen of a sovereign 
State—the State of South Carolina. To her, as 
the Senator from Alabama formerly said of his 
State, I owe my allegiance. With her I live, and 
at her mandate, I trust, I am prepared to die. And 
I care not what consolidationist, whether from the 
North or South, dares to assail her in the exercise 
of her sovereignty, so far as I am concerned, with 
the little power I possess, at her command I will 
resist, and resist to the last. She is my sovereign; 
and she at least will not tolerate the doctrine that 
treason cannot be committed against her. Let any 
man within her limits take up arms against her in 
obedience to any power—there stands her statute; 
her incorruptible judiciary; her executive armed 
with the sword of authority to protect her sover¬ 
eignty. His fate will be death. 

Mr. President, I am exhausted; and I presume 
that the Senate must be fatigued from the length of 
time I have tried its patience. I have here before 
me many other points in which the inconsistencies 
of the Senator from Alabama are exposed, and 
which I promised to expose. I must leave them to 
be read and compared as they are contained in his 
last speech. His inconsistencies with respect to 
the dismemberment of Texas—his beautiful picture 
of the blessings of the Union, and his tragic deline¬ 
ations of the horrors of disunion—I must leave un¬ 
quoted. I turn, in conclusion, to a public matter 
which has lately come to light in Alabama. It has 
been in the public prints for many weeks, and I 
have not seen it contradicted. 1 take it to be true. 
It may go far to explain the inconsistencies of the 
Senator from Alabama. 

It is well known that when that Senator was 
elected to his seat in this body, he was elected by 
the Whigs. The Democratic party, by an over¬ 
whelming vote, I learn, nominated his competitor, 
Mr. Fitzpatrick, to be their candidate for the Sen¬ 
ate. The Democratic party had a majority in the 
legislature ; but a few of the gentleman’s friends, in 
combination with the Whigs, elected him to his 
present place. I hold in my hand the statement of 
Judge Buford. You know the man, Mr. Presi¬ 
dent; and a more honorable and truthful man does 
not live within the confines of Alabama or the 
South. 1 know him also, sir; and I suppose his 
veracity and honor would not suffer in comparison 
with that of any man on this floor. Here is a 
statement he has placed before the world. He was 
a senator at the time in the Alabama legislature : 

“On the night before the final balloting by the 
legislature for a United States Senator a caucus of 
the whig members was held, at which it was an¬ 
nounced that Mr. Clemens had verbally pledged 
himself, if elected, to support the administration of 
General Taylor. Objections were made by mem¬ 
bers of the caucus to receiving a verbal pledge, and 
it was insisted that it should be reduced to writing. 
Accordingly, soon after, a small strip, containing a 
written pledge, was brought in the caucus by Mr. 
Rip Davis, of Limestone. It was nearly or exactly 
in these words : 


“ ‘ If elected to the United States Senate, I pro¬ 
mise to support the administration of Gen. Taylor. 

“ ‘ JERE. CLEMENS. 1 

“ It was further stated by Major Buford that he 
had seen the written pledge, and that it was repre- 



17 


sented and believed to be in Mr. Clemens’s hand¬ 
writing.” \£ 

Another Whig member of the Alabama legisla¬ 
ture, who Was in the caucus, comes out with a 
statement confirming that of Mr. Buford. Here is 
what he says: 

“ Eufaula, (Ala.,) January 29, 1851. 

“ Gentlemen : Your note of this date is received* 
For my own part, I never recognised any obliga¬ 
tion of secrecy in relation to the Clemens affair. I 
supported Mr. Clemens (as is well known) with 
extreme reluctance, and with the reservation of the 
right to make any explanation of the reasons I 
might think proper; and, besides, I heard of no 
pledge of secrecy in the caucus. I would not, how¬ 
ever, have volunteered my testimony in this mat¬ 
ter, nor have given it, but for the reasons stated in 
your note. 

“ On the eve of Mr. Clemen’s election to the 
United States Senate, there was a caucus of the 
Whig party; I did not contemplate attending, but 
went at the urgent request of my colleague, Mr. 
Gardner. When we arrived we found the caucus 
organized: the only question was, whether the 
Whigs, as a party, should support Mr. Clemens. 
Some of his friends gave verbal assurances that he 
would, if elected, act with the Whigs, and said 
they were authorized by him to say so. It was 
objected that it was unsafe to support him without 
a written pledge, and, the caucus being unable to 
agree, a member from Greene stated, that a pledge 
could be obtained, and called on Mr. Rip Davis, 
from Limestone, who rose and produced a small 
scrap of paper, and read it, as near as I can remem¬ 
ber, in these words: 

“ 4 If elected to the United States Senate, I pledge 
myself to sustain General Taylor’s administration. 

“ ‘ JERE. CLEMENS.’ 

“A good many gathered around to inspect the 
paper, and some seemed to question its being in 
Mr. Clemens handwriting, when Mr. Davis said, 
in substance, ‘I pledge my honor, as a gentleman, 
it is Mr. Clemens’s hand, and written by himself.’ 

“The same gentleman who had called on Mr. 
Davis, as above stated, then took the paper, and, 
holding it up, read it out in a louder tone, and in 
the same words. 

“ Yours, &c., 

“PAUL McCALL.” 

Mr. President, I have done. The Senator from 
Alabama, without any provocation on my part, 
thought proper to arraign me before the Senate. I 
stated what my purpose was ; that I would discredit 
the witness; that I would show that the authority 
which has presumed to impugn the honor and char¬ 
acter of other Senators, was not so high as to injure 
the reputation of any man, much less that of a Sen¬ 
ator. 1 have fulfilled my task. It has been most 
reluctantly performed ; but I could not avoid per¬ 
forming it. I have only acted on the defensive; 
and while I deprecate the necessity which has com¬ 
pelled me to this course of action, h, at the same 
time, must render my profound acknowledgments 
to the Senate for the courtesy which has afforded 
me the opportunity of doing what I have done in 
the vindication of truth and justice. 


Mr. CLEMENS. Mr. President, yesterday, 
about two o’clock, when at my room, I received 
the following formidable missive : 

Senate Chamber, Feb. 26, 1852. 

Dear Sir: I have been directed by the Hon. 
Barnwell Rhett to inform you, that to-morrow he 
will address the Senate upon the subject of person¬ 
alities between you and himself, and that he has 
given notice this morning to the Senate to that effect. 

I have the honor to be, most respectfully, your 
obedient servant, 

R. BEALE, Sergeant-at-Arms. 

Hon. J. Clemens, United States Senator. 

If that notice had been given to me alone, I might 
have supposed that the Senator from South Curo- 
lina intended to give me an opportunity of prepar¬ 
ing to die with decency. But, not satisfied with 
directing this note to me, I see from the morning 
papers that he gave, in addition, a formal notice to 
the Senate, to the galleries, to the reporters, and 
the letter-writers, in order that they might all ap¬ 
pear on the present occasion to witness his triumph 
and my discomfiture. It may happen that the vain 
self-conceit which has induced him to overlook the 
means of assault, has equally induced him to un¬ 
dervalue those of the defence. The Senator from 
South Carolina has manifested an ignorance of the 
history of this Compromise—an ignorance of my 
position in relation to it; he has drawn deductions 
from it so false and so unjustifiable, that I can at¬ 
tribute it to nothing but that blind and rabid spirit 
of disunion which prevents him from seeing things 
that, to other men, are as apparent as the noonday 
sun. He says that I called him a knave and a 
traitor. No man who heard that speech of mine 
ever entertained such an opinion but himself. The 
illusion to knavery was an illustration, not a charge. 
But if I had done so, the subsequent course of that 
Senator justifies me in adding the epithet of coward 
to that of knave and traitor. 

The PRESIDENT. The Senator must not use 
expressions of that kind. 

Mr. Clemens. I am not out of order, Mr. 
President, and I intend, if I can, to keep within the 
rules of order. But there are some things which I 
must say, and which I will say. If, when he be¬ 
lieved that the charge of knavery was pending 
against him, he brooded over it, and took more 
than two months to prepare himself for a deliberate 
speech to answer it on the floor of the Senate, he 
does not deserve the character of a man. No man, 
with the feeling of a man in iiis bosom, who be¬ 
lieved such a charge was pending against him, 
would have sought redress here. He would have 
looked for it elsewhere. He submitted to it then, 
and now comes here, not to ask redress in the only 
way he should have sought it, but, as he says, to 
discredit the witness; and how does he propose to 
do it? He begins with the evidence of two of his 
co-conspirators. Now, in my State, they are not 
allowed by law to give evidence for one another. 
But that is not all.\ He has evaded the point. He 
has sought to creat^ a false impression upon the 
Senate and the country. He has endeavored to 
make this Senate believe that I intended to charge 
them with open applause of his conduct. I meant 
no such thing, and every man knew that I did not 
mean it. But will he deny that they went to him 
and shook hands with him, congratulating him 
upon the speech that he had made? 


18 


Mr. Rhett. I deny it. 

Mr. Clemens. Mr. Chase, did you not do it? 

Mr. Chase. I do not recollect what I did, so far 
as shaking hands is concerned. I know I express¬ 
ed then, as I express now, my concurrence in the 
doctrines of the speech so far as it inculcated the 
doctrines of States rights; and when the Senator 
from Alabama, the other day,’gave us the pleasure 
of hearing a very beautiful speech upon another 
occasion, I expressed to him my gratification with 
that speech, so far as I concurred in it. And now I 
ask the Senator from Alabama upon what ground 
he says I am a co-conspirator with any one upon 
this floor ? 

Mr. Clemens. I will attend to one at a time. 
Now, what witness is discredited ? The Senator 
from South Carolina alleges that there was no such 
congratulation. Before the words are cold upon 
his lips the Senator from Ohio contradicts him. 
Where, then, is the witness who is discredited? 
Here are witnesses who saw it. The Senator from 
Ohio does not pretend to say that he did not do it. 
He does not pretend to say any thing of the sort. 
He says merely he does not remember shaking 
hands. But, sir, it is no extraordinary thing—it is 
nothing extraordinary for the Senator to be upon 
friendly and intimate terms with those whom he 
professes extreme anxiety to destroy. I am not 
saying any thing disrespectful of these gentlemen. 
The point which 1 mean to make is this : that the 
Senator from South Carolina at home denounces 
them as traitors—that everywhere throughout the 
land he has assumed the ground that they were 
worse than Arnolds—and yet in the face of all this 
we find his personal relations with them so warm 
that they can afford to go and congratulate him 
upon his efforts in favor of disunion. I do not 
mean to say there is any thing discreditable to them 
in that association : but what I mean to say is, that 
it is extraordinary—that it is something which is 
strange to the country—that this uncommon inti¬ 
macy should exist between them. But that is not 
all. The Senator has given us another illustration 
of his facility for forming such associations. In 
that very speech which he made here in the course 
of his reply to Mr. Foote, he let out the fact that 
he had private consultations with Thomas H. Ben¬ 
ton behind one of the columns of this Capitol in re¬ 
lation to Mr. Foote’s conduct towards Mr. Cal¬ 
houn. Who in South Carolina would have believ¬ 
ed that Barnwell Rhett would have gone to 
Thomas H. Benton to consult about the interests 
of John C. Calhoun? 

There was another witness whom the Senator 
did not call to the stand—possibly because he is 
not here—possibly because his testimony would 
not have suited him quite so well; and that is the 
honorable Senator from New Hamspire, (Mr. 
Hale,) who was actually so delighted that he left 
his seat and came over to this side of the House to 
listen to the whole of that harangue. Yet the Sen¬ 
ator from South Carolina now attempts to create 
the impression upon the country that I have made 
a false charge against him, of being on terms of in¬ 
timacy with these gentlemen. There is one thing 
which we all know : if there is no concord of sen¬ 
timent between him and them, there is a concord of 
sentiment between him and those whom they repre¬ 
sent. We all know that the abolitionists have de¬ 
clared that the Constitution of the United States is 
“ a covenant with death and an agreement with 


helland we all heard the Senator utter sentiments 
equally as atrocious. 

He says that I calumniated him. Calumniate 
him! It is beyond the power of man to do it. 
How, though, did I calumniate him ? What word 
did I utter which he has not avowed on the floor of 
the Senate? Did he not get up and proclaim him¬ 
self a traitor ? And does he call it calumny when 
I charge him with being precisely what he has 
avowed that he is ? Is that the standard by which 
he measures calumny? Sir, I could say nothing 
worse of him than he has said of himself. I never 
intended to say any thing half as bad. It is true 
he is a man for whom I never had any fancy. It is 
true I never sought his acquaintance. It is true 
that, when he came here, I refused to extend to hint 
that courtesy which is usually extended to new 
Senators, and refused to be introduced to him. 
That is the reason he does not know me. But I 
never intended to make his character nor his con¬ 
duct the theme of discussion in the Senate. The 
subject is too small. I have heard, or rather I have 
read, a description by one of the English poets of a 
certain period of darkness when vipers crawled 
among the multitude, “ hissing, but stingless;” and 
I knew well that it applied to him. We can hear 
him hiss, but there is no sting about him. 

Mr. Jones, of Tennessee. If the Senator from 
Alabama will permit me, I will suggest that it is 
impossible for him to-day to answer the speech of 
the Senator from South Carolina; and, with hie 
permission, I will move that the Senate do now ad¬ 
journ till to-morrow, twelve o’clock. 

Mr. Clemens. There is another matter to which 
I wish to advert, and I will give way in ten min¬ 
utes. 

Mr. Jones. I withdraw the motion. 

Mr. Clemens. There is a matter which has 
been brought into this controversy which I choose 
to notice now. I do not wish that any false impres¬ 
sions shall go abroad to the country. The Sena- 
or from South Carolina has ventured to do here 
to-day what no man in Alabama was ever found 
bold enough to do in my presence. The retailer of 
a slander is as bad as the originator. Indeed, he is, 
if possible, worse than he who originated it. He 
has charged me with owing my election to a cor¬ 
rupt bargain with the Whig members of the Ala¬ 
bama legislature, and he has read a letter from Jef¬ 
ferson Buford and Paul McCall on the subject. I 
choose to notice them now* If he had only waited 
two days longer, I think the probability is he 
would never have ventured to make the charge; be¬ 
cause the refutation of it has gone home so strong, 
that no man would have dared to repeat it. The 
fact is this, so far from making any pledge, that 
slip of paper to which Mr. Buford alludes contain¬ 
ed no expression of opinion at all. Sir, you were 
in Montgomery at the time. Although of course 
you cannot be presumed to know what was done 
by the Whig party, yet your conduct from that day 
to this has manifested that you did not believe one 
word of the calumny. It was a simple note of au¬ 
thority to Mr. Davis to state what my opinions 
were. He was a warm personal friend, perfectly 
familiar with those opinions ; and I told him, who 
had heard them repeatedly, to state what they were. 
There is now a member in the other House who 
was a leading member of that legislature—one of 
the individuals whom it is alleged knows most 
about it—who has again and again authorized me 





19 


to pronounce it a calumny. Mr. Davis has again 
and again authorized me to do the same. A num¬ 
ber of other gentlemen have written letters de¬ 
nouncing it, or authorizing me to do so. But the 
Senator brings up the dead carcass, on the floor of 
the Senate, and makes it a charge against me, to 
account, as he supposes, for what ? An abandon¬ 
ment of Democratic principles? Who charges me 
with having done so ? Who alleges that I have 
ever given a vote that was not according to the 
strict Democratic faith? Who charges me with 
not being in full association with every Democratic 
member of this body ? 

I promised long ago, and it is a duty which 1 
mean now to discharge, that if ever I could meet a 
man in Alabama who would allege that thing to be 
true, I should brand him as he deserved; and I 
want the Senator to mark now what I have to say 
on the subject, and apply it. The charge, emanate 
from whatever quarter it may, circulated by whom 
it may, is a foul lie, unmitigated and unredeemed by 
the slightest semblance of truth. I am now willing 
to adjourn until to-morrow. 

Mr. Jones, of Tennessee. Then I move that 
the Senate adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to, and the Senate ad¬ 
journed. 

Saturday, February 28, 1852. 

Mr. Clemens. Mr. President, I observed a par¬ 
agraph in one of the papers this morning lament¬ 
ing that the Senate had been disgraced on yester¬ 
day by the use of “coarse and scurrilous” lan¬ 
guage. When the Senator from South Carolina 
(Mr. Rhett) gave a formal notice to his peculiar 
friends to be present on that occasion for the pur- 
ose of hearing him indulge in personalities—when 
e caused a notice to be served upon me that it was 
his purpose to engage in that particular species of 
amusement—I hope that neither he nor they sup¬ 
posed the war would be confined entirely to one 
side. It is to be regretted, doubtless, that the invi¬ 
tation to my funeral should have turned out to be 
so sad a mistake. The guests were all present, the 
preacher was at his post, and proceeded regularly 
with the ceremonies ; but then came the resurrec¬ 
tion; and now, instead of the triumphant notice 
which the Senator no doubt anticipated, we have 
a short paragraph deprecating the use of personal 
language in the Senate. If that .Senator had taken 
the course he ought to have taken, there would 
have been no syllable uttered by me to which the 
greatest stickler for propriety could object. If he 
he had confined himself to attacks upon my po¬ 
litical course—if he had commented in language, 
no matter how severe, upon what he chose to re¬ 
gard as my inconsistencies, or my abandonment of 
State rights—I should have replied with perfect 
temper, and uttered nothing offensive to him or 
others; but when he went to the columns of a low 
and scurrilous newspaper to hunt up a foul and 
loathsome calumny—when he brought that calum¬ 
ny here, and sought to give it dignity and import¬ 
ance by parading it in the presence of the Senate— 
I did feel some degree of irritation, and gave the 
only answer it became me to make. For the lan¬ 
guage used I have no regrets; nor have I the least 
disposition to recall or explain it. Previous to that 
he had said nothing which excited a feeling of an¬ 
ger. If he imagined he was saying any thing new 


—any thing which had not been heard from every 
stump in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi—he 
knows but little of the contest through which the 
Union men of the South have recently passed. 
His mode of assault was too familiar to me to cause 
annoyance. I had met it again and again, and ex¬ 
pected to meet it here. 

If I had been permitted to conclude oh yester¬ 
day, I should have said other things quite as un¬ 
pleasant as those to which he has already listened; 
but a night’s reflection has satisfied me that enough 
has been said, and that, however much he may de¬ 
serve it, it does not become me to utter more. I 
shall therefore confine myself to a defence of that 
consistency he has arraigned, and, in the course of 
my remarks, I shall endeavor to show that he knows 
nothing whatever of the subjects on which he has 
undertaken to speak. He promised in the outset 
to prove that, in 1850, I was a thorough State- 
rights man, and in December, J851, (the date of 
my speech on Mr. Foote’s resolution,) I was a 
federal consolidationist. To establish this he quoted 
an extract from a speech of mine which he either 
could not or would not understand. In that speech, 
the term “ sovereign” is indeed applied to a State, 
and there is a denial of the right of the Executive 
to use force. It was based upon a letter of the 
President, in which he claimed the right to employ 
the military of the United States against Texas. I 
denied it, and said “ the law is plain and clear— 
individuals, not States, are the subjects of coer¬ 
cion.” I had the law before me at the time, and 
meant only to assume the ground taken by General 
Jackson in the memorable nullification era. When 
South Carolina proposed to nullify a law of the 
land, General Jackson applied to Congress, and 
said that the powers vested in him were not suffi¬ 
cient to subdue the forcible resistance of a State, 
and therefore he asked for the passage of a law to 
meet the emergency. The force bill was the result. 
So I held, and hold now, that the Executive has no 
power to resort to coercion in the event of resistance 
by a State ; but Congress has, and Congress may, 
at any time, authorize him to do so. It will be dif¬ 
ficult for the Senator to find any language of mine 
denying this right on the part of the law-making 
power of the Union. It is a right essential to its 
very existence. Take it away, and our con¬ 
federacy would be worse than the old Amphyc- 
tionic league. If there is no power to coerce a 
State, the new States might appropriate all the 
public lands within their respective limits. The 
Atlantic States might seize upon the revenues from 
imports. One State might block up the navigation 
of a particular river, and another abolish the col¬ 
lection of debts in the United States courts, or the 
punishment of offences against the United States 
laws. The Republic could not endure for a year, 
unless Congress possessed the power of coercion. 
With a characteristic attempt at special pleading 
the Senator has seized upon my use of the words 
“ sovereign State,” and thus seeks to convict me of 
inconsistency. Why, sir, in the speech to which 
he professed to be replying, I admitted the too 
loose use of these words. In common with every 
other publicman in the country, I have often spoken 
of the States as “sovereign ;” and it is possible, as 
I have before said, that we have thus contributed 
to the errors which pervade certain portions of the 
country. The ordinary reader, when he sees the 
word sovereign in the speech of a public man, wil 



20 


attach to it the meaning given by the dictionaries, 
a'/id it wili not always be present to his mind that, 
’when we so speak, we speak of a sovereignty cir¬ 
cumscribed by the Constitution. I have again and 
again asserted that some of the highest and most 
"essential attributes of sovereignty have been taken 
away from the States; and who will dare to deny 
it? The Senator from South Carolina has not ven¬ 
tured to do so. Of the many cases I have enu¬ 
merated, he has seized upon one which he takes 
to be the weak point, and labors to prove that I am 
mistaken in asserting a State cannot punish treason 
against itself. In the exultation of his fancied suc¬ 
cess, he adds, if I am right in that, it is indeed true 
the States are not sovereign. Well, sir, I shall 
show that I am right, and that the Senator, in his 
ignorance of the Constitution, has made an admis¬ 
sion fatal to his case. He enumerates, as conclu¬ 
sive of the question, certain States which have pass¬ 
ed laws for the punishment of treason. Now, sir, 
1 have not been guilty of the foliy of asserting that 
a State may not call murder treason, and so punish 
it.^5-1 have not denied but that she may designate 
in her laws a riot as treason, or a forcible rescue as 
treason. But what I do say is, that a right to pun¬ 
ish treason, as appertaining to sovereignty, is 
something which is absolute, uncontrolled, and 
unlimited. Any restriction whatever of the right is 
its destruction. There is one kind of 'punishment 
for treason a State cannot inflict. There are cases 
in which she cannot punish at all. One of the most 
common modes of punishing treason is by bill of 
attainder. The Constitution has expressly taken 
away from the States the right to pass bills of at¬ 
tainder. Here, then, is a restriction which, accord¬ 
ing to his understanding, as well as to mine, is a de¬ 
struction of the right as an attribute of sovereignty. 
But let me give a stronger illustration. I read first 
from the Constitution: 

“ This Constitution, and the laws of the United 
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, 
and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under 
the authority of the United States, shall be the su¬ 
preme Jaw of the land; and the judges in every 
State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Con¬ 
stitution or laws of any State to the contrary not¬ 
withstanding.” 

I will suppose a case which has once occurred. I 
will suppose that Congress passes a revenue law 
which gives great offence to the authorities of South 
Carolina. The legislature, sitting in the interior of 
the State, declares it a nullity, and arms a portion 
of the citizens to resist it by force. The officers of 
the United States, in the city of Charleston, call 
upon the citizens to aid them in the execution of 
the law. In obedience to the supreme law of the 
land that aid is given, and force repelled by force. 
Will any one pretend that, for thus resisting the 
constituted authorities of the State by arms, a citizen 
could be rightfully punished for treason ? They 
might hang him if they caught him ; they might 
doubtless indulge in all those delectable amusements 
which the Senator painted for us yesterday; but 
then it would be a question of might, not a question 
of right. If carried before any just judge, he would 
only have to point to the Constitution, and then to 
the law he obeyed, to insure his discharge. No ju¬ 
dicial officer, -with a proper regard for his oath, 
would hesitate to declare that a State had no power 
to punish a citizen for obedience to the laws of the 


Union. The Constitution must first be destroyed. 
When that is done—when a successful revolution 
has enabled a StateWo resume the powers with 
which it has parted—then, but not until then, will 
the laws of the United States cease to be supreme, 
and obedience to them may be punished as treason. 

There is a tribeof constitutional exponents in our 
land who have learned by rote the words federalist, 
consolidationist, and submissionist, and who apply 
them indiscriminately to every one whose argu¬ 
ments they cannot answer. From such men I have 
nothing to expect but detraction, and to such men 
I do not address myself. I look to the calm, good 
sense of the people to rebuke the dangerous heresy 
that we have a national Government in name only, 
not in fact—a Government equally powerless for 
its own protection or the protection of the citizen— 
a Government which the whims or the caprices of 
every petty State may, at any moment, dissolve, 
and involve the land in all the horrors of anarchy. 

The Senator has read, with great seeming satis¬ 
faction, a declaration of mine, that wherever Ala¬ 
bama went I would go with her. Certainly, sir, I 
did use such language, and I repeat it now. But 
it by no means follows that I believe Alabama has 
a right to secede. It only follows that my affections 
are there, and whether right or wrong, I shall go 
with her. Upon the same principle I would assist a 
brother or a friend if I found him engaged in a per¬ 
sonal difficulty, without stopping to inquire into the 
cause of the quarrel. I shall do, as I have done, 
all I can to prevent Alabama from rushing on her 
own destruction ; but if those efforts fail, her des¬ 
tiny must be mine. I shall go, however, with 
my eyes open, claiming no right of peaceable 
secession, but asserting the right of revolution— 
aright to be enforced by the armed hand, and the 
armed hand only. The difference between the 
Senator and myself is, that I hope the time may 
never come when 1 shall be compelled to choose 
between the Union and my native State. Hence 
I have sought to remove all causes of bitterness, 
and to quiet that restless feeling of discontent 
which must ultimately lead to such painful re¬ 
sults. The Senator, on the other hand, has been 
engaged in the opposite task of creating preju¬ 
dices and exciting animosities where none before 
existed. I shall leave it for others to decide which 
best becomes the character of a patriot. 

In his indictment against me, the Senator has in¬ 
cluded a resolution of inquiry which I had the hon¬ 
or to submit to th£ Senate in the performance of 
my duties here. This is a striking illustration of 
that Senator’s peucliar mode of reasoning. Who, 
save the Senator himself, ever dreamed of attribut¬ 
ing opinions to another, and proving it by a resolu¬ 
tion of inquiry ? In the very nature of things such 
a resolution implies that we are indoubt, and want 
information on which to base an opinion. But sup¬ 
pose I did believe at that time, as indeed 1 did, 
that the President had interfered in the affairs of 
California to a censurable extent, there is nothing 
in my present position at all inconsistent with it. 
The President denied it. My old friend, General 
Riley, denied it. The proof sustained them, and 
the prosecution was abandoned. 1 know of no one 
man upon whom a heavier responsibility rests for 
the admission of California than R. Barnwell 
Rhett himself. The journal of the other House 
will prove that if California is now a State, the 
southern members of that body, including the Sen- 




V 


21 


ator, are accountable for it. They had it complete¬ 
ly in their power to defeat the appropriation bills 
entirely, or compel the adoption of the Senate’s 
amendment, known as “ Walker’s amendment.” 
If the Senator had merely resorted to the legisla¬ 
tive expedient of making dilatory motions, and call¬ 
ing the yeas and nays, California would have had 
a territorial government, and thus all the angry 
discussions, upon her admission as a State, would 
have been avoided. A northern man [Mr. Walker, 
of Wisconsin] proposed a satisfactory settlement. 
The Senate passed it; the House rejected it; and 
the Senator from South Carolina, then a member 
of that body, made no effort at resistance. He 
who is now anxious to resort to violence and blood¬ 
shed shrank even from adopting a legislative expe¬ 
dient—unusual, indeed, and rarely to be justified, 
but still far preferable, as a preventive, to revolu¬ 
tion as a remedy. The people of California did 
not want a State government, for the support of 
which they would necessarily be loaded with taxes. 
They desired to be organized into a Territory, the 
expense of which would fall on us, not on them. 
They adopted a constitution and form of State gov¬ 
ernment as a last resort, because they could adopt 
no other, and their necessities demanded a govern¬ 
ment of some kind. Upon the principle that we 
are responsible for acts of omission as well as com¬ 
mission, the Senator is chargeable with a full share 
Df guilt for whatever wrong the admission of Cali¬ 
fornia may be supposed to inflict. 

It is well known to you, Mr. President, that I 
have never justified the admission of California; 
and in that respect I have no inconsistencies to an¬ 
swer for. In the last speech I made upon the Com¬ 
promise, I stated distinctly and emphatically that 
my original opinions were unchanged—that I sub¬ 
mitted to it because among other things resistance 
was a folly and a madness. Two of the most 
powerful southern States had given overwhelming 
majorities for the bill. Did the Senator expect me 
to go home and preach the duty of secession from 
rennessee and Kentucky—from Virginia, Mary- 
and, Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina—from 
ill but the few States usually designated as the 
‘ cotton States? Did he expect me to aid him in 
he establishment of a little confederacy upon the 
3rulf, within whose narrow limits such men as the 
Senator might figure conspicuously? I resisted the 
massage of the law; when passed, and by the aid 
)f southern men, who had as good a right to judge 
is I had, I submitted to a decision I could not 
irevent. 

The Senator says I denounced the admission of 
California. It will be difficult for him to find such 
anguage in any speech of mine. But suppose 
uch was the tendency of my argument, was I to 
nsist on that opinion as infallible in opposition to 
he opinions of so many southern men older and 
bier than I am ? My own construction of the Con- 
titution would of course govern me so long as I 
/as called on to vote or speak in this Chamber. 
Jut when the matter had passed from us—when it 
ecame a question of submission or civil war—I 
/as fully at liberty to distrust my own judgment, 
nd to hesitate before I advised a resort to that last 
readful alternative. I trust that I am free from 
le arrogance of supposing that my judgment is in- 
Ulible, and that no man can be an honest and in- 
orruptible friend of the South whose opinions do 
ot coincide with mine. I did not believe, and I 


would not say, that many of our best men (your¬ 
self included) were either traitors to the South or 
ignorant of the Constitution. I thought it quite as 
likely that I might be mistaken as that you were, 
and acted accordingly. 

The Senator says that at one time I counselled a 
dissolution of the Union. Not so. The very 
speeches from which he has read prove the utter 
falsity of the charge. On the lltli February, 1850, 
in the speech from which he has read, l used this 
language: 

“ I know that to me individually there has been 
attributed a deliberate design to dissolve this Union, 
Great God ! what have I to gain by such a course ? 
I have no bitter enmities against any section or 
against any party. I have no disappointed aspira¬ 
tions urging me on to desperate expedients. There 
is not in this broad land a single individual with 
fewer motives to disturb its harmony. I have 
friends, and warm ones, in all its parts. For a 
long time I commanded a New England regiment r 
for a long time I was associated with northern men 
in all the scenes which make up the changeful 
drama of a soldier’s life. Does any one suppose 
that I can contemplate with satisfaction the possi¬ 
bility of standing face to face as foes,with those by 
whom I have so often stood side by side as 
friends? *The charge is a gross absurdity; but 
even absurdities may come to be believed by con¬ 
stant repetition.” 

How was it possible for me to have used stronger 
language in repelling the charge of disunion? It 
seems to me that it would have been impossible to 
select words of plainer import. 

Again, sir, I said : 

“ Much of this I cannot prevent; but when the 
charge is made here in my presence that I am a fac- 
tionist, or that those who act with are so, I shall 
repel it in terms which admit of no double mean¬ 
ing. Sir, I do not believe that there is a single 
man in the entire South who desires disunion for 
itself.” 

Here I not only repelled it for myself, but for all 
who were acting with me. At that day I believed 
what I said. At that day I believed there was not 
a traitor to be found in the broad savannahs of the 
South. I regret that I have been compelled to 
change that opinion. In that respect I have been 
inconsistent; and if the Senator had based his 
charges upon that ground, 1 should have entered 
no defence. It is with pain and mortification I ac¬ 
knowledge there are those among us who have 
avowed not merely a willingness but an anxiety to 
level this fair fabric with the ground. I know that 
in the eyes of such men I have committed a deadly 
sin. But it is one of which I have not repented ; 
and I now repeat, that as long as a hand of mine 
can be raised to prevent it, not one stone, not one 
atom, of that glorious edifice shall be removed. 
Another extract, and I shall leave this branch of 
the subject. It is from my speech of the 20th of 
February, 1850, in reply to Mr. Clay, of Ken¬ 
tucky : 

“ The Senator is mistaken if he supposes he can 
say any thing of the possible consequences of dis¬ 
union which has not occurred to us. We have often 
manifested our sense of the evils of disunion, and 


22 


t 


never more so than at the present time. We do 
not mean to dissolve,” &c. 

After these emphatic declarations, made at' all 
times, not only during the pendency of the Com¬ 
promise measures, but before their introduction— 
not made after it was ascertained that southern 
men had voted for and sustained them, but before I 
could possibly know what course they would pur¬ 
sue—what right did any man have to suppose that 
I would advocate secession both from the North 
and a large portion of the South? The truth is that 
no man did believe it. No one at that day dream¬ 
ed of disunion, save as a desperate remedy for in¬ 
tolerable oppression. None locked to it as a thing 
to be desired. It was contemplated by all with a 
shudder, although some of us certainly believed it 
might become a necessity. For whatever violent 
language may have been used by me or others, 
there was an excuse in the attending circumstances 
not now to be found. We came here claiming cer¬ 
tain rights and privileges which it was alleged had 
been denied us by the previous Congress, of which 
the Senator from South Carolina was a member. 
In that state of the case, smarting under what we 
believed to be serious and aggravated wrongs, it 
was not to be expected that the language employed 
in our speeches would be characterized by great 
moderation. In that speech of mine upon the Ver¬ 
mont resolutions, which has so delighted the Sena¬ 
tor from South Carolina, I did comment in strong 
terms upon many acts of injustice which had been 
perpetrated upon the South. I took occasion to 
warn northern men that they must not only pause, 
but they must retrace their steps. They did so. 
Previous to that time every northern State, except 
Iowa, had instructed their Senators to vote for the 
Wilmot proviso. Before the session was half over 
the proviso was dead. In some cases the resolu¬ 
tions of instructions were repealed, and in others 
those thus instructed took the responsibility of vot¬ 
ing for territorial bills without it. We had no bill 
for the recapture of fugitive slaves. That Congress 
passed a bill in all respects such as the South de¬ 
manded. We had been ever since the date of the 
Missouri Compromise excluded from all territory 
north of 36 deg. 30 min. This restriction was re¬ 
moved, and a territorial government established for 
Utah whose southern boundary line is 37 degrees, 
containing an express guarantee that it might come 
into the Union with or without slavery, as her con¬ 
stitution might prescribe. The spirit of fanaticism, 
which had been abroad at the North, everywhere 
began to disappear, and the action of both legisla¬ 
tures and conventions indicated a determination to 
respect the constitutional rights of the South. 
There are now two Senators on this floor whose 
election was a consequence of this happier state of 
feeling. 1 mean the Senator from New Jersey, 
(Mr. Stockton,) and the Senator from Rhode 
Island, (Mr. James. know they will not take it 
unkind in me for thus referring to them, and adding, 
as I gladly do, that there are no two men in this body 
more firmly determined to mete out equal and exact 
justice to every section of the Union. Could I, 
with any regard to truth or decency, with these 
facts staring me in the face, persist in a course of 
denunciation, which could only have the effect of 
exasperating those who were conscious of doing 
all they could to merit kinder treatment? Such a 
course might, indeed, have been gratifying to the 
Senator from South Carolina, and to those who, 


like him, seek a dissolution of the Union; but it 
would neither have been creditable to me nor ac¬ 
ceptable to the honest and patriotic people I repre¬ 
sent. If the same state of things existed now 
which did exist at the date of that speech, it is 
quite possible I might employ language as strong 
as any then used. But that state of things has 
passed away, and it is the part of a good citizen to 
bury with it all memory of the bitterness to which 
it gave rise. 

The Senator has been exceedingly cautious not 
to touch that part of my argument which relates to 
the territorial bills. Even he felt that was impreg- . 
nable, and he chose rather to indulge in complaints 
of my laudations of the Union. On that, as on 
other points, he misunderstands me. I sing no ho¬ 
sannas to a Union which is one in name only, not 
in spirit. I do not wish to see this people tied to¬ 
gether by a hateful bond, while discordant interests 
and rankling jealousies gangrene its separate parts. 

It was not such a Union which Washington and 
Jackson meant when they urged us to preserve it. 
They wished, I wish, all of us should wish, a 
Union of a different kind, in which each member 
cherishes an habitual respect for the rights of others; 
in which all are taught to believe that it is impossi¬ 
ble for any of its members to deliberately intend to 
do wrong; that some charity is due to errors and 
mistakes; that injustice must be temporary only ; 
that a common interest, the recollections of past 
glory, and the anticipations of future greatness, ^ 
cannot fail in the end to correct whatever evils pas- ( 
sion or prejudice may have spoken into being. It 
is for a Union of this sort only that I have been 
earnestly pleading with my countrymen. The 
Senator has been as zealously engaged in seeking 
to destroy it. His mission is to inculcate jealousies 
of the North. Addressing himself to those who 
have not the time or the opportunity to investigate 
for themselves, he says that the people of the north¬ 
ern States are a horde of robbers, whose chief oc- . 
cupation consists in devising schemes to rob the 
South ; that there is among them a reckless disre¬ 
gard of law which prevents the execution of con¬ 
gressional enactments, and that murder has ceased 
to be a punishable offence, if committed upon a 
citizen of the South in pursuit of his property. It 
is not surprising that he has thus succeeded, to 
some extent, in estranging one portion of the coun¬ 
try from the other. His co-laborers at the North 
have also met with some success. It has thus be¬ 
come the duty of every patriot to address himself 
to the task of removing these discontents, and to 
inculcate the high duty of loving one another. Let 
the voice of the demagogue everywhere be answered 
by truth and reason, and we shall soon witness a 
better and a brighter era. 

With his usual inaccuracy, the Senator from 
South Carolina has ventured to assert that no State 
has ever been admitted into the Union without a 
previous act of Congress authorizing the adoption 
of a constitution and form of State government. The 
Senatormighthavelearned,even from my speeches, 
if he had read them for any purpose but to garble 
and distort, how utterly at variance this assertion 
was with the facts. I had occasion once before to 
refer to all the acts of Congress upon the subject, 
and now read from the tables then prepared, the 
accuracy of which cannot be questioned. 

In Vermont there was no act of Congress au¬ 
thorizing the people to form a constitution and 




23 


State government. In Kentucky there was none. 

In Tennessee there was none. In Maine there 
was none. In Arkansas there was- none. In 
Michigan there was none. In Florida there was 
none; and in Iowa there was none. Here, sir, are 
nine States which, according to the logic of the 
Senator, are illegally and unconstitutionally mem¬ 
bers of this confederacy. Some of them were ad¬ 
mitted immediately after the adoption of the Con¬ 
stitution, when the framers of that instrument 
themselves held seats in Congress; but no one 
heard, at that day, of the miserable quibble that 
“ States” only could be admitted. The practice of 
the Government, from its foundation, has been to 
look to the attending circumstances. In some 
cases they have passed acts authorizing the estab¬ 
lishment of State governments; in others they 
have not. They have always claimed and exer¬ 
cised the power of dispensing with formalities, 
and of being governed by what seemed to be the 
public good. 

The Senator from South Carolina exultingly in 
formed us that he was performing the same opera¬ 
tion upon me that I had performed upon Mr. 
Foote. I think he has found out by this time that 
he had a troublesome subject. The operator him¬ 
self has not escaped without suffering. But he 
may console himself by the reflection that he is 
not alone. He is not the first man who has under¬ 
taken the task and regretted it before it was con¬ 
cluded. I did quote extracts from some of Mr. 
Foote’s speeches; but it was done in a spirit of 
kindness and courtesy—with none of that ranco¬ 
rous bitterness which characterized the effort of 
the Senator from South Carolina. It was sudden 
and unpremeditated—not brooded over for months. 

I did not hug to my bosom a cherished hatred, and 
watched an opportunity to stab the reputation of 
another. 

The extract from my speech which has been se¬ 
lected by the Senator as the theme of his discourse 
is not the part which rankled. He has chosen to 
dwell upon that, but I know well where the sting 
was found. I did not express any great admira¬ 
tion for his abilities, and that is the wound his 
vanity could not pardon. Sir, he had no right to 
complain of my denouncing, in strong terms, his 
disunion sentiments. I but followed an example 
he had set me. When John Q,. Adams presented 
a petition in the House of Representatives, pray¬ 
ing a dissolution of the Union, a resolution was 
immediately introduced to expel him. After much 
discussion, Mr. Botts, of Virginia, moved to lay it 
on the table. The Senator from South Carolina 
voted against the motion—thus showing that in his, 
opinion"Mr. Adams ought to be expelled for merely 
presenting a petition in favor of disunion. I have 
not said the Senator ought to be expelled—I have 
said nothing of him as strong as that vote said of 
Mr. Adams; and yet the crime of the one was 
nothing compared to that of the other. Mr. Adams 
acted in accordance with what he believed to be the 
right of the people to be heard by petition. Mr. 
Rhett for himself proclaims, again and again upon 
this floor, that he is a disunionist. I shall not indi¬ 
cate what punishment he deserves if measured by 
his own standard. 

The Senator arraigns my vote upon the boundary 
of Texas, and, as usual, falls into error. Indeed, 
sir, while listening to him, I felt utterly astounded 
that, after so long a preparation, he should have 


been so wholly uninformed. The Texas bill, for 
which you and I voted; never formed a part of the 
“omnibus.” It was introduced by the Senator 
from Maryland, [Mr. Pearce,] after the “ omni¬ 
bus” was killed. It established for Texas totally 
different boundaries, and gave to her nine hundred 
miles on the Rio Grande, and enough territory for 
two States more than Mr. Calhoun said belonged 
to her. 

The Senator descanted on the fact that I said I 
would not vote to repeal the bill abolishing the 
slave trade in the District of Columbia, and an¬ 
nounced with great emphasis that it is not the mere 
fact that the slave trade is abolished in the District 
of Columbia to which he objects, but that it is the 
penalty affixed to a violation of the law. Does not 
that Senator know that that very penalty has been 
affixed to it since 1801? Does not that Senator know 
that the only effect of the bill which passed at the 
last Congress was to extend the provisions of the 
law of 1801 to the citizens of Maryland? It was 
copied woi’d for word from the Maryland law, 
which had been extended to this District ever since 
1801, except as to Virginia and Maryland. There 
has not been a time since 1801 when that Senator 
or any citizen of South Carolina could have brought 
a slave here and offered him for sale without in¬ 
curring the penalty of emancipation. Yet this is 
now raised as a bugbear with which to frighten 
grown men at the South. It has not alarmed us 
much heretofore; we have submitted to it with a 
very great degree of patience. It is too late now, 
when it is only extended to the State of Maryland, 
for us to raise complaints upon the subject. That 
bill of 1801 was approved by Thomas Jelferson, 
and Maryland, the only party in interest, heartily 
approves of the law of 1850. 

There is another matter to which I must refer. 
The Senator from South Carolina chose to read an 
extract from my speech upon which he put a con¬ 
struction which he knew, or ought to have known, 
it would not bear. In reference to Mr. Calhoun I 
said: 

“He was never a secessionist, and I am au¬ 
thorized to say that the proof of it will be before 
long given to the world. He regarded the attempt 
of a single State to go out of the Union as madness, 
and died in that opinion.” 

I did not mean to assert that Mr. Calhoun did 
not believe there might be a right of secession. I 
used the term “secessionist” as the Senator under¬ 
stands it; and l state again, that Mr. Calhoun did 
hold the opinion that the secession of a single State 
would be madness. In a conversation which I had 
with him but a short time previous to his death, 
he said: 

“ We could have carried matters much further 
than we did in 1832; but then Tennessee would 
have been arrayed against South Carolina, Ken¬ 
tucky against Virginia, and other southern States 
against each other, and that would have defeated 
the very object we had in view. My object was 
to consolidate the whole South, to unite them upon 
one platform; and I never would do any.act which 
could estrange one portion of them from another.” 

That was his policy, honestly entertained, how¬ 
ever wrong I may think it to be. But as for the 
secession—the peaceable secession—of a single 


24 


State, he always knew it was madness. It was 
something which his great mind could not compre¬ 
hend. 

I am charged with saying, on a former occasion, 
that disunion might be peaceable. True, I did say 
so, and I say so again. If the whole of the south¬ 
ern States should determine to leave the Union, I 
think they would be permitted to go peaceably, 
because any attempt at coercion would be folly. 
But even then I have no idea that peace could ex¬ 
ist for any length of time. With a long line of 
frontier upon which posts and garrisons would 
necessarily be kept up by both parties, causes of 
dissension would soon arise, and war, with all its 
evils, would soon be upon us. That, however, is 
a totally different thing from the attempt of one, 
•or two, or three States to go out by themselves. 
In that event, force would certainly be used. Those 
whose sympathies were on the side of the invaded 
State would rush to her rescue, and thus the whole 
Republic might become involved in a war which 
would terminate only with the termination of our 
liberties. 

The Senator complains that I went from Wash¬ 
ington “a submissionist.” I did go from here pre¬ 
pared to submit to the law, and to perform my 
part as a good citizen under it. I went from here 
with the impression that, although we had not ob¬ 
tained all we asked, still we had obtained some¬ 
thing with which we could afford to be content. 
When I reached there I found demagogues ha¬ 
ranguing the people all through the State, endeavor¬ 
ing to persuade them that they had been wronged, 
outraged, and robbed, and I did there what I hope 
I shall do on all similar occasions—I dared to get 
upon the stump and tell them the truth. 

The August election proved that the people were 
with me; for there was not one solitary man in the 
whole State of Alabama who did not, before that 
election closed, deny that he was a secessionist for 
disunionist. A man could not have been elected 
constable in any respectable beat in the State who 
would have proclaimed such sentiments as have 
been uttered by the Senator from South Carolina. 

Sir, I am a submissionist, and the people of my 
State are submissionists; but we are sou them rights 
men nevertheless, better southern rights men than 
those who not long since were warring against us, 
but who now come here to take seats cheek by jowl 
with Preston King, Rantoul, Chase, Hale, and 
Sumner. We have manifested our devotion to the 
South as well as our devotion to the Union, and 
we will do it again whenever a proper occasion 
arises. 

And now, Mr. President, I leave the Senator 
from South Carolina to the enjoyment of all the 
-laurels he has acquired by his assault upon me. 

Mr. RHETT. Mr. President, the course of the 
Senator from Alabama is precisely that which I ex¬ 
pected it would be. I anticipated it in a conversa¬ 
tion with a friend before I spoke. He had, without 
any cause on my part, stigmatized me here on this 
floor as one guilty of treason and knavery. I knew 
very well that a man who would commit such an 
-offence, who would insult without provocation, 
would not hesitate, under the exposure I intended 
to make, to add insult to insult. Therefore, when 


he yesterday pursued the course which he did pur¬ 
sue, it was precisely what I expected. 

I did not, as the senator charges, brood two 
months over his attack. He heard what I stated 
on this point in his presence in the Senate. I stated 
that I neither knew nor heard of what he had said 
concerning me until just before I was leaving my 
home in South Carolina to come to this city. On my 
arrival here I waited for the resolution, on which 
he had attacked me, to come up for consideration. 
Seeing the course of things, I was in no hurry to read 
his speech. But, not many days since—about ten 
days, I suppose—I got the Senator’s speech from 
the folding room and read it. I sent, also, for a 
copy of the’speech of the Senator from Michigan, 
[Mr. Cass,] who, I heard, had honored me with 
his notice. It did not require much brooding to 
determine my course. I made up my mind that it 
became me, as a man and as a Senator, not to allow 
these imputations to pass unnoticed in the Senate. 

I was equally convinced that my reply to the Sena¬ 
tor from Alabama would be followed by additional 
and probably aggravated insult. If he insulted me 
gratuitously, what right had I to expect that, when 
exposed before the Senate, he would be more for¬ 
bearing? He has come up precisely to the estimate 
I had put upon his character. 

The Senator from Alabama denies that he meant 
to charge me with knavery and treason. Now I 
will read his words again to the Senate, and then I 
will leave the Senate to judge what their import is; 
and I will call upon the senator from Alabama to 
say, if that is not their import, what they do mean. 
Here is what he says: 

“There was the Senator from Massachusetts, 
[Mr. Sumner,] theSenator from Ohio, [Mr. Chase,] 
and the senator from New Hampshire, [Mr. Hale,] 
gathered about him in a sort of fraternal ring, while 
the countenance of the Senator from New York 
[Mr. Seward] was radiant with gladness. Thus 
was exhibited the spectacle of an extreme southern 
Senator denouncing, in no measured terms, the gov¬ 
ernment of his country, and declaring himself a 
disunionist, on account of alleged wrongs heaped 
upon him, with four as rabid abolitionists as this 
land contains, drinking in his words with eager ap¬ 
probation— applauding, cheering , and encouraging 
him. All this was nothing new to us, however 
strange it may appear to the plain and honest yeo¬ 
manry of the country. Nor was it, when calmly 
considered, at all unnatural— 

‘A fellow feeling makes U3 wondrous kind.’ 

There is a sympathy in treason as ivell as in knavery; 
and those who are earnesly striving to accomplish 
the same end, need not quarrel about the separate 
means employed.” 

Here the Senator charges that there is a sympa¬ 
thy between these Senators and myself upon the 
matter of disunion; and he then observes that there 
is a sympathy in treason as well as in knavery. Is 
not that plainly charging us with treason and 
knavery? 1 will leave the Senator from Alabama 
to explain if that is not his meaning of his words. 

Mr. Clemens. There is not a Senator on this 
floor who does not understand it precisely as I do. 
There is no more charge of knavery against him 
than there is against the Senator from Massachu¬ 
setts, or the Senator from Ohio—against whom I 
never meant to make such a charge. There is a 









25 


charge of disunion; and he had himself avowed 
that he was a disunionist. 

Mr. Rhett. If that is all the Senator has to 
say, his words stand unexplained. I ask him to 
explicate from his xvords I quote, another meaning 
than that I put upon them. He does not attempt 
to do so. He says that they do not contain the 
charge I allege they do contain. That is denial; 
but it is no proof. In his failure to show that they 
contain any other meaning than that I put upon 
them, he virtually admits that he cannot make his 
disclaimer consistent with his words. His words 
mention persons—declare that they are in concert 
to accomplish a certain end, and then assert that 
“there is a sympathy in treason as well as in kna¬ 
very.” The Senator can take his choice between 
two alternatives. He was either using words with¬ 
out meaning, and thus talking nonsense to the 
Senate, or he did by his words make the charge I 
deduced from them. No man of sense can draw 
any other meaning from his words. 

Now, Mr. President, I admit that this was a 
gross and wanton insult; and I admit, too, that, act¬ 
ing upon “ the code of honor,” I ought not to have 
waited a month, or a day, or a moment, before I 
had required him to retract or fight. That is the 
course we are accustomed to pursue in the State I 
represent. I was perfectly aware of my position. 
I did not require the Senator, from Alabama to tell 
me what I ought to have done, as a man of the 
world and a man of honor. But, sir, I am a pro¬ 
fessor of the religion of Christ. I did not think it 
proper to challenge the Senator for two very im¬ 
portant reasons. The first was, because I had 
another object in view, and still have it, far above 
the vindication of myself from any personalities or 
insults that the Senator may have offered. Whilst 
vindicating myself on this floor, I would also vin¬ 
dicate the great cause with which I am identified. 
I have very feebly indicated my purposes in my 
defence, if the Senate has not perceived that 1 have 
used the Senator from Alabama, if not for my scorn 
or laughter, to bring up again the wrongs perpe¬ 
trated by this Government upon the South, and the 
consequent dangers which surround her ; and again 
to place forward for public consideration those great 
conservative principles arising from State rights 
and State sovereignty, which alone can give her 
peace or safety. 

Sir, without sovereignty in the States—without 
the right of secession in the States—we live under 
a consolidated despotism ; and I am in favor of the 
exercise of the right of secession, if for no other 
purpose, for the purpose (as I intimated in the 
speech I delivered the other day) of testing the 
form of government under which we live. 

But my second reason for not calling the Senator 
from Alabama into the field, was of a still higher 
and more controlling nature. For twenty years I 
have been a member of the church of Christ. The 
Senator knows it—everybody knows it. I cannot, 
and will not, dishonor my religious profession. If 
he, or any one else, supposes that I am so much 
afraid of his insults, or the opinion which requires 
them to be redressed in the field, as to be driven by 
them to abandon the profession of twenty years, 
he is entirely mistaken. I frankly admit that I 
fear God, and that I fear him more than man. Al¬ 
though desirous of the good opinion of all men, 
(for our usefulness is very largely dependent on 
the good opinion of our fellows,) we can never ob- 


tajn it by an abandonment of the principles we 
profess. True courage is best evinced, by the firm 
maintenance of our principles amidst all tempta¬ 
tions and all trials. I did not assail the Senator 
from Alabama; he assailed me. I have defended 
myself; and in doing so, if he has seen any fear of 
him indicated by me, he is welcome to all the pride 
and gratification it can impart. If firmness in main¬ 
taining even worldly principles, or a course of 
worldly policy, be any indication of courage, I 
might not suffer from a comparison with even the 
Senator from Alabama. I have not here threatened 
and tried to bully the North ; and when the North 
will not be bullied, and puts upon me the outrages 
and dishonors to which I had declared resistance, 
I have not quietly submitted, and then begged the 
“ humble privilege ” of supporting them. I have not 
afterwards turned round upon one of my associates 
who, formerly battling with me, now would not 
yield, and accused him of fear, of cowardice. Sir, I 
profess the possession of no extraordinary courage-, 
but 1 trust 1 have the courage to support the right 
and defy the wrong, although backed by an over¬ 
whelming public opinion, North and South. I am 
here alone, but, I trust, alone without fear. Have 
I quailed before any of you? Senators, answer if I 
have ever done so. 

The Senator from Alabama says, that he did not 
mean, to say, that the Senators he speaks of in his 
speech made any noise in cheering, applauding, and 
encouraging me. He says he supposed everybody 
understood him to mean, that they did not make 
any noise. Those who were present here, and 
knew that there was no noise by applause and 
cheering, might have known that the fact was not 
so. I will not say they could have known his con¬ 
struction of the words he uses; for the words 
themselves are too plain for misunderstanding. 
What is the meaning of applauding and cheering? 
If the gentleman will turn to the dictionary, he will 
find that to applaud, is to clap with the hands, strike 
with the feet, or make some noise to indicate ap¬ 
probation. And w-hat is cheering in a popular as¬ 
sembly or deliberative body ? Why, intimating by 
the voice approbation of what is said. The Sena¬ 
tor says, these gentlemen not only cheered and ap¬ 
plauded me, but that they also encouraged me. If 
he meant that to applaud and cheer were equiva¬ 
lent to encouragement, why put applaud and cheer 
before encouragement? He has taken that speech, 
and sent it down into Alabama. He sent it to the 
yeomanry who, he says, will be astonished at the 
scene he depicts. I have no doubt, that they will 
be prodigiously astonished to hear that abolition 
Senators on this floor applauded and cheered me 
when I spoke, and probably will never be unde¬ 
ceived as to the truthfulness of what they read in 
his speech. The Senator must do one of two things 
to get rid of the predicament in which he has placed 
himself. He must stultify himself as to his know¬ 
ledge of the English language, or he did mean to say 
that these Senators did applaud and cheer me here 
in the Senate. Was that assertion true ? It is to¬ 
tally untrue. It is untrue in fact, and untrue in the 
reasons he assigned for its existence. He has not 
attempted to show that the words he used meant 
any thing beside their plain, undoubted significa¬ 
tion. 

He says further, that I acknowledged myself to 
be a traitor. I acknowledge myself to be a traitor! 
When and where? Here is another of the Sena- 


26 


tor’s facts! When the late Senator from Missis¬ 
sippi [Mr. Foote] thought proper to assert that se¬ 
cessionists were traitors, did I stand still here under 
the imputation ? I could not be a traitor, under my 
view of the Constitution, unless I was like the 
Senator from Alabama, a rank consolidationist. 
Standing, as I do, a citizen of South Carolina, 
owing allegiance to her as my sovereign, I cannot 
be a traitor in obeying her mandates. And if she 
thinks proper to secede from this Union—as she 
rightfully has the power to do—my duty and my 
allegiance are due to her. Sir, the traitors to this 
Government, if any there be, are the consolidation- 
ists. They are traitors against the States, to whom 
alone they owe allegiance, because they deny their 
sovereignty. It is they who would break down 
the whole fabric of the Government, and make it 
simply an Austrian despotism, in which their re¬ 
served rights would be taken away from the States. 

1 do not say they are traitors; but I say, be¬ 
tween the two classes of politicians—the State- 
rights men, who maintain the rights of the sov¬ 
ereign States, affirming that they are parties to the 
constitutional compact, and have a right to secede 
from it whenever they please—between them and 
those who deny the right of the States to secede, 
who deny that the States are sovereign, and con¬ 
tend here for a consolidated despotism—if there be 
treason, it is on the part of the latter. If any are 
traitors, they are the traitors—foul, usurping trait¬ 
ors to their States. 

The Senator from Alabama further says that I 
brought here into the Senate a private alfair—the 
statement concerning him which Judge Buford and 
Mr. McCall have put forth in Alabama for more 
than a month past. When I came to this city I 
found this statement here. The Senator says it is 
a private matter. It was no private matter. It was 
a matter affecting the representative of a sovereign 
State, and the dignity of this Senate. And while 
he talks of expulsion, and says that I wished to 
vote to expel John Gtuincy Adams—an assertion 
entirely gratuitous—I can tell him that, if the facts 
W’hich these gentlemen assert, and have published 
in the public papers, be true, and they had been 
brought forward before the Senate when he came 
here to take his seat, he never would have been re¬ 
ceived among his compeers in this illustrious body; 
no, sir ; never. And I am not sure if he had taken 
his seat, and a resolution had been offered to expel 
him from the Senate, but that a majority of this 
body would have passed the resolution. On this 
point 1 will take nothing for true but what the hon¬ 
orable Senator himself admits. Mr. President, you 
know Judge Buford. I know you do ; and a more 
honorable, and upright, and truthful man does not 
live in this broad land. I know him. I do not 
know Mr. McCall. But now, admitting that there 
is a mistake as to the fact that the Senator gave a 
written pledge to uphold the Whig party, which 
these gentlemen assert was seen and read by them, 
signed by him, what is it that I understand the 
Senator to admit? I understand him to admit that 
which I asserted, that, at the caucus of the Demo¬ 
cratic party in Alabama, he and Mr. Fitzpatrick 
were the candidates for the Senate, and he was de¬ 
feated. 

Mr. Clemens. No, sir; I never admitted any 
such thing. 

Mr. Rhett. Were you not voted for in the 
caucus of the Democratic party ? 


Mr. Clemens. If you wish to know the facts 
in relation to the matter, I will tell them to you. 

Mr. Rhett. I wish to know the truth. 

Mr. Clemens. Some fifteen or twenty mem¬ 
bers of the legislature got together for the purpose 
of consultation, not to hold a caucus. Mr. Fitz¬ 
patrick’s friends, finding they had a majority of 
those present in his favor, turned in and nominated 
him. The very same day that caucus met, and re¬ 
scinded their resolutions. There never was any 
more of that; and the Democrats who voted for me 
represented a majority of ten thousand of the voters 
of the State. 

Mr. Riiett I wish to know the truth of this 
matter. I understand the Senator now to say that 
there was no caucus of the Democratic party. 

Mr. Clemens. There was no regular caucus. 
A few members met for another purpose, and the 
friends of Mr. Fitzpatrick, being a majority of 
those present, nominated him; but the next day 
there was a caucus, and the other resolutions were 
rescinded. 

Mr. Rhett. Well, Mr. Fitzpatrick was the 
nominee of the Democratic party. Was not that 
true ? 

Mr. Clemens. Fie claimed to be so, but I de¬ 
nied it. 

Mr. Rhett. The Senator, then, denies that a 
caucus was held, or that Mr. Fitzpatrick was the 
nominee of the Democratic party. He certainly was 
not its nominee. A Mr. Davis, a Whig in the 
Whig caucus, (who the Senator says is a man of 
honor, and was his friend,) was authorized by him 
to express his views and opinions to the Whig par¬ 
ty at a Whig caucus. Do I understand that to be 
the case ? 

Mr. Clemens, (in his seat,) I shall answer 
no more questions now. 

Mr. Rhett. As the gentleman has corrected 
me in one respect, I take it for granted he will cor¬ 
rect me again if I should fall into error. He goes 
to the Whig caucus. He authorizes a friend, a 
Whig in the Whig caucus, to state his opinions on 
public matters. 1 say nothing about the written 
pledge said to have been given; but what is the re¬ 
sult? The Whig party, as a party, come out and 
vote for him in the legislature, and he is elected a 
Senator of the United States; and, further still, 
they have been his supporters ever since. I do not 
wish at all to assert any thing concerning the Sen¬ 
ator which is not true, but thus far I understand 
him to admit is true; and they place the Senator 
in a position very little different from that which 
the assertions of Judge Buford and Mr. McCall 
place him in. As to the conflict of veracity be¬ 
tween the Senator and the writers of these letters, 

I leave that to the people of Alabama to determine. 
The facts asserted were not private matters. They 
were public matters—public men acting on great 
public interests, and affecting the well-being of a 
whole State, and the dignity of this illustrious 
body. 

I shall not notice all the points the Senator has 
made this morning in his vindication, but only a 
few, rather on account of their public importance 
than for his discussion of them. I stated that the 
current of our legislation in admitting new States 
was, that Congress passed a law, previous to the 
State being admitted into the Union, for her to 
make a constitution and become a State ; and that, 
after thus being a State, she was admitted into the 


Ml 


Union. That was my proposition. The Senator 
asserts that Florida and other States came into the 
Union without any such act. Sir, he is totally mis¬ 
informed. Before those States came in there was 
an act passed by Congress by which they were au¬ 
thorized to form a State and to come into the 
Union. It is very true, as in the case of Florida, 
that the people had, previous to the act of Con¬ 
gress, made a constitution ; but they did not come 
in here until Congress passed the law by which 
they were authorized to make themselves a State. 
Congress passed the law first. The people of 
Florida then adopted the constitution which had 
previously been made, organized themselves, and 
presented themselves here for admission. So it 
was with the other States. The question between 
the Senator and myself was this: He insisted that 
California was constitutionally admitted into the 
Union, because it was the practice, the univer¬ 
sal practice, in this Government to admit Territo¬ 
ries as States into the Union, and that the fact of 
their admission made them States. That was the 
proposition which he asserted. I said that, on the 
contrary, the practice had been that the Territories 
should be organized into free and independent 
States by the sanction of an act of Congress, and 
thus, being States, they were admitted into the 
Union, and that in this way only could the words 
of the Constitution be fulfilled, which says, that 
“new States may be admitted by Congress.” The 
Senator from Alabama has not touched the point in 
his remarks which he originally supported and ad¬ 
vanced, nor do his authorities. 

The Senator says, that the abolition of the slave- 
trade in the District of Columbia, with the penalty 
of emancipation, was in force here before. If that 
was the case, will you, Mr. President, or any one 
else, be so good as to tell us why Congress passed 
any law at all as a part of the Compromise? Why 
should there have been so much contention as to 
the clause making emancipation the penalty of 
bringing negroes here for sale, if that was the law 
already? Here, again the Senator is at fault. We 
all know that there were in different parts of the 
city, slave-pens, as they were called, where slaves 
were openly brought in and sold. It was to sup¬ 
press that evil the law was passed, with the pen¬ 
alty of emancipation. 

The Senator from Alabama alleges he did not 
maintain that Mr. Calhoun was not a secessionist 
in principle, but only that he was against a State 
exercising that power. The Senator has forgotten 
his words. Here they are: 

“John C. Calhoun and George McDuffie exam¬ 
ined the resolutions of ’98 and 5 99, for the right of 
secession, and could not find it. They.found, as 
i they thought, nullification. But nullification is it¬ 
self a denial of secession.” 

Now, is not that affirming distinctly that John 
C. Calhoun never affirmed the right of secession? 
The Senator has forgotten, his own speech. There 
appears to be a peculiar proclivity on the part of 
the Senator continually to bring in Mr. Calhoun as 
authority to support his views, but always with a 
misunderstanding or misrepresentation of his opi¬ 
nions. Speaking of the dismemberment of Texas, 
which he defends in his December speech, he says: 

“The next measure of which complaint has 
been made, is the bill settling the boundary of 


Texas. Well, sir, it so happens, that this also is 
a southern, not a northern measure. It was intro¬ 
duced by a southern man, passed by southern 
votes, and ratified by the people of the only south¬ 
ern State who had any direct interest in it. It fur¬ 
ther happens, that Mr. Calhoun, the great leader 
of the South during bis life, has left on record his 
deliberate opinion that Texas never had a shadow 
of title to one foot of the territory we surrendered 
to the General Government. He asserted that the 
true boundary of Texas was the middle of the 
desert between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. 
We gave to Texas nine hundred miles on the Rio 
Grande, which, in his opinion, did not belong to 
her. ” 

Here is a gross misrepresentation of Mr. Cal¬ 
houn’s opinions. Mr. Calhoun asserted that the 
Nueces was the boundary of Texas before we ac¬ 
quired Mexican territory by the Mexican war. It 
was upon the question of the Mexican war, when 
the boundary of Texas was disputed and disput¬ 
able, that Mr. Calhoun said her boundary did not 
extend to the Rio Grande. The, people of Texas 
and the Government here took the ground that 
Texas did extend to the Rio Grande. Hence 
troops were ordered to the Rio Grande, and the 
Mexican war arose. But when the war was end¬ 
ed, and, by a treaty, the Rio Grande was made the 
boundary of Texas by a map attached thereto, who 
ever heard Mr. Calhoun deny that the Rio Grande 
was the boundary of Texas? That which was be¬ 
fore disputable-, and occasioned the war, was settled 
by the war. And now, because Mr. Calhoun, 
previous to that settlement, expressed such an 
opinion as to the boundary of Texas, the Senator 
says that Mr. Calhoun was in favor of the dismem¬ 
berment of Texas after the treaty was formed. 

One word more upon an important subject, and 
I have done. The sovereignty of the States is of 
the very last importance. The Senator from Ala¬ 
bama, although he complains of the confusion of 
ideas and language in others concerning it, seems 
to me to have himself no very clear or distinct ideas 
of sovereignty. I agree with him that sovereignty 
must be the supreme authority in a State. He lays 
down the proposition, and I assent to it. But, 
how, then, does he talk of the States and the 
General Government being both sovereign ? Who 
ever heard of two sovereignties in a State? One 
must be supreme; and that which is supreme is 
sovereign. Sovereignty is the supreme, ultimate 
authority. That authority, I maintain, resides in 
the States. And yet, here, because certain powers 
of sovereignty are exercised by the General Gov¬ 
ernment, he claims that the States have surrender¬ 
ed all their sovereignty. A man has powers and 
faculties, and may use them in concert or subordi¬ 
nation to others. Has he therefore destroyed him¬ 
self? So with sovereignty. It is the highest au¬ 
thority of the land. But it may exercise its powers 
of sovereignty in concert with other States. It 
may do so by special treaty; it may do so in the 
form of Government in which we are. But is 
sovereignty therefore parted with or annihilated? 
Surely not. Certain pow’ers of sovereignty are ex¬ 
ercised together by the States through the General 
Government; but the States have not surrendered 
their sovereignty. They are still supreme, and 
may resume those powers whenever they think 
proper. Sovereignty cannot be divided. There 
cannot be two supreme authorities—that is an ab- 


I 


V • 




surdity; and it is on that point that it seems to me 
the confusion of the Senator exists. He asserts 
that there is no sovereignty in the States; and, 
then, in the next breath, he says they are sovereign 
in certain particulars. They are sovereign in all 
particulars, or in none. This Government acts by 
their authority, and by no other authority, and 
they are thus sovereign ; or this Government is the 
supreme authority, and they have no sovereignty. 
The distinction, which the Senator does not seem 
to understand, is between sovereignty and the pow¬ 
ers of sovereignty. 

I do not mean to go into the various matters of 
explanation concerning the speech which I made. 
I have put down the Senator from Alabama exact¬ 
ly in his own words. I have read to the Senate 
and shall print what he has said. It will be read. 
If his replies are sufficient to refute his own words, 
as I have placed them down, be it so. I only say 
that, according to my conception, he has failed in 
his effort. There is nothing, in my judgment, 
which the gentleman has said that refutes the anta¬ 
gonistic positions he took in his former speeches 
and in his December speech. They are totally in¬ 
consistent and irreconcileable. But if he can recon¬ 
cile them, it is very well for him to do so. 

Mr. President, when I rose yesterday, it was 
my intention to have addressed myself also to cer¬ 
tain remarks of the Senator from Michigan, (Mr. 
Cass,) but my strength failed; and the controver¬ 
sy with the Senator from Alabama has taken up so 
much of the time of the Senate, that I feel it would 
be a trespass to detain them longer on these mat¬ 
ters. I shall therefore reserve what I have to say 
to a more convenient opportunity, when I hope to 
address myself to the'Senator from Michigan. 

Mr. Clemens. Mr. President, I wish to add 
but a word or two. The Senator from South Caro¬ 


lina says that he anticipated, when he made his as¬ 
sault upon me, that it would be repelled and met, 
as he terms it, by renewed insult. The Senator 
then placed himself in a very disagreeable situation, 
with very little provocation. 

As for his reasons for not replying in the man¬ 
ner in which I thought he ought to have replied. I 
have only this to say: I am the equal of that 
Senator in all things—equal in place—equal in 
learning—equal in reputation—equal in the estima¬ 
tion of this Senate—equal in the estimation of the 
country ; and I thought of course when he made 
his attack thatjhe expected and desired it to termi¬ 
nate without the Senate. As to his being a mem¬ 
ber of the church, 1 never heard of that until last 
night. When I did hear of it I determined at once 
to use no more offensive expressions, although 1 
could not help thinking that it ought to have pre¬ 
vented the provocation rather than proved an ex¬ 
cuse for avoiding the consequences. How could I 
suppose that he was a professing Christian—that 
night after night he had laid his head upon his pil¬ 
low with the prayer upon his lips, “ forgive us our 
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against 
us’’—while he was cherishing in his heart of hearts 
a malignant bitterness which would have done cre¬ 
dit to a fiend? How could I suppose that he was 
planning, even at the foot of the altar, a cold¬ 
blooded and deliberate assault upon the reputation 
of a fellow man ? 

As for the Buford letter, to which he has again 
alluded to-day, I do not mean to trouble the Senate 
with any remarks about it. It'is a matter between 
meand my constituents, and I will settle it with 
them. Nor have I any reply to his criticisms on the 
words he has read. If he will not see, it is his 
fault; if he cannot, it is not my province to en* 
lighten him. 






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